

Sometimes it’s not an application that’s causing your PC to freeze but a process running in the background.

How to identify and quit an unresponsive application Do some research on the best way to clear fan ducts and vents before you start. You can use a can of compressed air to do that, but be careful with it – you don’t want to blow the dust into your laptop. Take a look at the vents, using a torch and check if they look blocked. If it’s still running slowly when you reboot, or if it starts running slowly shortly afterwards, you may need to take action to clear vents of any dust that might have built up. If that doesn’t work, quit all applications, saving your work first, and then reboot your PC. Wait a little while and see if the fans spin down and your PC cools down. If you think overheating might be the problem - if the fans are spinning loudly and your laptop feels hot to touch, it’s likely that it is - start by quitting all applications you’re not using currently. Talking of malware, it’s another potential cause of freezes, outside of hogging RAM.įortunately, there are several steps you can take to track down the cause of an unresponsive computer and fix it. This can be caused by having lots of applications running at once, or by an application malfunctioning and hogging RAM, or even by malware running in the background. In these circumstances, the operating system slows your PC down in order to prevent damage from overheating.Īnother common cause is running out of free memory. When you’ve been using it for a while, particularly if you’ve been running demanding tasks like playing games or watching HD video streams, the CPU will get very hot and the fans will struggle to keep it cool. This is a common cause of laptops freezing.

One common reason is that it’s overheating. It could be hardware or software, or a combination of both. There are a number of reasons your PC might become unresponsive. Fortunately, while it’s very frustrating, it’s rarely a serious problem and there are lots of things you can do to get it running smoothly again. There are a number of things that can cause your PC to become unresponsive or to freeze altogether.
