What should I do when a computer freezes?

 

This document contains recommendations on what to do if the computer freezes or dead locks. If your computer has stopped responding, follow the steps below to attempt to get the computer to unfreeze.

Tip: If you are concerned about an important document that hasn't been saved, the program you are using may have an AutoSave feature, and you may be able to recover a recent version of the document after rebooting.

Note: If your program does not have an AutoSave feature or the ability to recover a recent version of a document, you may lose all unsaved work due to a freeze or dead lock. It is important to save your work often to minimize or prevent this possibility.

Give the computer some time

Wait. Give the computer a few minutes to process. Sometimes a computer may appear to be froze, but it is really just slow or busy processing a complex task.

Is the computer dead locked?

See if the computer can respond to anything by pressing the Caps Lock key on the keyboard and watching the Caps Lock led (light) to see if it turns off and on. If the computer can turn on and off Caps Lock, continue to the next step. If nothing happens, the computer is dead locked, and you must reboot the computer.

End Task the Not Responding program

If the Caps Lock can turn off and on, Windows is still working, but another program may not be responding and causing the computer to freeze. Press Ctrl + Alt + Del to open the Windows Task Manager. If the Task Manager can open, highlight the program not responding and choose End Task, which should unfreeze the computer.

Note: It could still take ten to twenty seconds for the unresponsive program to be terminated after you choose End Task.

Reboot a frozen computer

If none of the above steps helped, you must reboot the computer. To reboot a frozen computer, press and hold down the power button until the computer turns off. Once the computer is off, wait a few seconds, then turn the computer back on and let it start as normal.

Note: During the computer startup process, you may see a screen asking if you want to start the computer in Safe Mode or Start Windows Normally. Choose the Start Windows Normally option and see if Windows starts up correctly, without error.

Resolve Hardware or Device Driver issue

If after trying all of the above there may be defective hardware or a device driver is not working correctly. A defective hard drive, stick of RAM, video card, or other piece of hardware can cause a computer to freeze. A device driver can also cause a computer to freeze if it is out of date, conflicting with another driver, or just not working properly.

If you determine that a defective piece of hardware is causing the freezes, you should replace the hardware right away, to prevent further damage to the computer. If a device driver is at fault, you can try to download the latest driver from the manufacturer's website and install it before the computer freezes, or use another computer to download the driver and try installing the driver on your computer.

If you are unable to install the latest driver before the computer freezes, another option is to start the computer in Safe Mode. Once in Safe Mode, you can access Device Manager and uninstall the hardware device corresponding to the device driver that is not working correctly. Then, restart the computer and load into Windows normally. Windows should detect the hardware that you uninstalled and try to reinstall the device driver. This process may be enough to fix the issue and stop further freezes from occurring. You can also try installing the latest driver at this point, to make sure your computer is up-to-date for that device driver.

You can also try accessing the computer BIOS and disabling any hardware that is working properly, to see if that stops the freezes from occurring. However, you should still replace that hardware, as you may not be able to use your computer fully if the hardware remains disabled.

Take PC to Repair Shop

If none of the above options work or are possible to try, we recommend you take your computer to a computer repair shop and allow a computer technician to diagnose and fix the problem.