Windows freeze on HGL30

I hesitate to ask anything about this, since it's not a big deal as it's only happened 3 times in nearly a month, but it does worry me. Every once in a while my system will completely freeze. This is something that used to happen all the time on my desktop, and still does occasionaly. I used to ask people about it, but they always had no clue what it was or what to do (some of them were supposed to be knowledgable computer people; oh well). When I say it freezes, by the way, I mean completely. The mouse cursor freezes in place and a lot of the internal components go silent (though not all of them). It only happened, as I said, 3 times on my laptop, but it really worried me the first time, kind of a "here we go again" feeling, and I want to see if it is actually a problem I can do something about. After asking people and no one knowing what it is, I began to think it was just my desktop, but now... I wonder if it's just some weird windows problem.

 

Can you filter out some common denominators when you experience these freezes (i.e. certain applications running, during a certain point in a game, etc.)?

I'm also thinking it may be a glitch with a particular application that you may have installed on your system--especially since it happened to you on two different systems.

That does not sound like normal Windows behavior.

And of course you could always give your reseller's tech support a call to see what they have to say about it.

 

Yeah, I thought about calling tech support, but if it's a software or windows problem I would hate to bother them with it. The only thing I can think of it could be is Mozilla. It often happens when I'm running Firefox, but I run a web browser almost always when I'm on the computer, unless I'm gaming. It's really happened on my Compaq desktop while running everything except games. It happened once while running Word, and I lost about a third of a 12 page paper I was wrting. The only other program I can think of that I run all the time is virus software: AVG. I suppose it could be that, as well, but other people I know run AVG and have no problems. In fact, same with Firefox.

 

Are there any extra programs you may have running in the background, perhaps like Mobydock or something that changes the appearance of your desktop?

Try to monitor what programs are running if and when it happens next.

 

I will try, but, just to say, that would have been much easier about 2 years ago on my desktop. Back then it was doing it all the time, at least once a day. Now it would be difficult to predict when it's going to happen. Thanks, though.

 

You wouldn't be bothering tech support, as that's what they're there for. And as Donald says, "that's what I pay them for." I think they may or may not be able to help you narrow down the potential problems quicker.

It really sounds to me like it's an application or process that you're running that's causing this issue. Possibly even a driver.

Just out of curiosity, have you reformatted your HD yet? Perhaps doing that and starting fresh with only OS and drivers would do the trick. Then add the applications slowly one at a time to see which one's the culprit.

But I'd call tech support anyway in case they've heard of this problem.

 

I didn't reformat when my laptop came as I had ordered xp pro from them and they installed it. I wouldn't think it's something they put on, since it happened to me before. I'm really not sure, though. Maybe I'll call tech support and see what they say. I think I'll wait until it actually happens again, though. This time I'll pay attention to exactly what I was doing and see if that helps.

The only thing is, I can't think of anything I use now that I was using back when my desktop started doing it. That was 3 years ago, and the only thing I used then, that is on my laptop, is AIM, and it's an updated version on both now (also probably winamp, but I don't see it being that, either).

 

This will be the key to finding the answer.

 

I d also test memory to make sure it s not a factor. You can get pretty much random crash with a bad memory chip.

Otto.