Why does my notebook keep freezing

Device drivers are an essential part of your operating system. They send instructions to other parts of your machine, telling them how to do their jobs. But when drivers are out of date or not working properly, they can cause problems for your machine, locking it up. While drivers are typically updated automatically, they occasionally need to be updated manually—especially if you've recently installed a new mouse or an external hard drive, which can sometimes cause your computer to crash.

If you have a Mac, you'll need to update your whole operating system see the next section for more details. In the meantime, here's how to update your device drivers for Windows. Your operating system is responsible for managing programs on your device and making sure they all work together properly. So, if you want to prevent computer crashes, it's important to check and see if your operating system is updated regularly. This is also important because operating system updates contain key security patches your device needs to protect itself from viruses and cyberattacks.

Here's how to update your operating system for Mac and PC. Sometimes, a bad piece of software or a faulty device driver can cause your computer to crash.

But both Mac and Windows operating systems give you the option to restore the most recent settings on your device before the problem occurred. Here's how they work. Unfortunately, a Time Machine backup only works if you have an external hard drive connected to your Mac and have already set up this option in advance. If you've done so, follow these steps. If none of the steps above 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.

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. Any work not saved is lost when a frozen computer needs to be reboot. In some situations, some programs may autosave your work every few minutes.

If the program you are using performs this action, you can recover the work up to the last autosaved state. If you tried all steps above and the computer still freezes, there may be defective hardware or a device driver that is not working correctly. A defective hard drive , stick of RAM , video card , or another piece of hardware can cause a computer to freeze.

A device driver can also cause a computer to freeze if it's out of date, conflicting with another driver, or not working properly. If you determine that a defective piece of hardware is causing the freezes, replace the hardware right away to prevent further damage to the computer. If a device driver is at fault, download the latest driver from the manufacturer's website and install it before the computer freezes.

This should tell you what software is acting up so you can uninstall or update it. Learn how to unravel what processes tell you about your programs.

You might also have hidden software, such as a virus, causing problems. Be sure to run a scan with your security software to uncover something that shouldn't be there.

In cases where your computer freezes during startup in normal mode, but boots OK in Safe Mode, the problem could be a program that's loading during the boot sequence. Use a program like Autoruns to selectively disable the programs that begin at startup and see which one is causing the problem.

If your computer is freezing during startup no matter what, and it's at the same point, then the problem could be corruption in Windows, or a hardware problem. A quick way to tell is to grab a Live CD for another operating system, such as Linux Mint or Tails , and boot with that. If the other operating system boots OK, then you're probably looking at a problem with Windows and might need to reinstall.

If Windows is having trouble starting, it should pop up a Recovery option during boot that includes this, or you might have to use a disc. A computer that freezes both in normal mode and Safe Mode, or with another operating system, can often indicate a problem with your computer's hardware.

It could be your hard drive, an overheating CPU, bad memory or a failing power supply. In some cases, it might also be your motherboard, although that's a rare occurrence. Usually with hardware problem, the freezing will start out sporadic, but increase in frequency as time goes on. Or it will trigger when the computer is working hard, but not when you're doing more basic things. Step 4. Connect the bootable drive to your computer that is freezing, and boot from the bootable drive to get the following window.

Step 5. Step 6. In the main interface, select the target drive you want to recover. You can also click Devices tab and select the whole disk to scan. Step 7. Scan the selected drive. Here, if you find all the files you needed during the scan, you can stop the scanning process.

However, for the best result, it is recommended to wait until the full scan finishes. Step 8. Select all needed files, then click Save to store them in a safe place.

We recommend storing the files on another drive. Otherwise, the original data could be overwritten , resulting data unable to be recovered. If MiniTool Power Data Recover lists a lot of found files in a neat tree view, you can use the Filter feature to quickly find the files you need. With MiniTool Power Data Recovery, without affecting the original data, I effectively and quickly recovered lost data from my computer of which Windows 10 keeps freezing.

Now, I want to share this tool with you to help you get rid of data loss problems. After data recovery, you can try reinstalling Windows to solve the laptop keeps freezing and not responding issue. Here, you can find more details from this post: Reinstall Windows If none of the above options work, you have no choice but to take your PC to a computer repair shop and allow a computer technician to diagnose and fix the problem.

What would you do when your computer keeps on freezing?