Is your computer freezing up? Here’s what could be happening
Question: My computer has begun to freeze on an intermittent basis; what should I do?
Answer: One of the most annoying situations in computing is when the computer freezes up in the middle of an important task, seemingly out of nowhere.
The reality is that when this happens, it’s a sign that you have a significant issue that needs to be addressed.
Ignoring the freeze-up and rebooting every time can lead to a variety of additional problems, like filling your hard drive up with junk files.
It’s also one of the more complicated issues to troubleshoot because it’s intermittent, which can get frustrating.
What to do if your browser freezes
Since we all spend so much time on the internet, your browser could be the only problem. To determine this, the next time your web browser freezes, switch to your word processor or another browser to see if they are functioning properly.
If other programs function properly, you’ll want to spend time looking into various browser-related causes and if nothing else works, your problem likely resided with the operating system or faulty hardware.
Common causes for browser freezes include malware, too many tabs opened, third-party add-ons that are conflicting with one another, or a corrupted cache.
Running a full security scan of your computer can check for malware in all areas of your computer. Opening your browser in Safe Mode (https://bit.ly/3NIDuex) will disable third-party add-ons or extensions to see if things run smoothly without them.If you are a “taboholic” who tends to surf with a large number of tabs open, you may be running into a memory issue that can be resolved by closing unneeded tabs or adding RAM (random access memory) to your computer.
Clearing your cache can help
To test for corruption in your browser’s cache (a local copy of commonly used websites), try bypassing it (https://bit.ly/44wvrYh) which forces everything to be downloaded from scratch.
If the freezing goes away, it’s time to clear your cache (https://bit.ly/415MugN), and if it doesn’t, try uninstalling and reinstalling the browser, especially if another browser works without freezing.
Computer hardware might be faulty
This one can get a little tricky to…