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[samsonlonghair]

These are all great ideas. Here's another easy one: Hit Ctrl+Alt+Del to open task manager. Click on the "Processes" tab and look for anything that seems out of place or unfamiliar, especially if it's using up system resources. If you're unsure of something, do a google search for the name of that process.

Another place to look is next to your clock. Click on the little left arrow << next to your clock in the bottom right corner of your screen. You'll see a bunch of little applications that you probably didn't realize were running in the background. These little buggers sometimes cause pop-ups and always steal system resources. If you don't absolutely need them, shut them down.

[Genma]

Since we're on the subject of spyware, can anyone help me out?

See, I bought this computer for christmas, and until recently it'd been working very well. As of late it's been totally lame, however, and has sudden crashes for no apparent reason.

My whole computer will freeze up and I'll be able to move the mouse, but not click on anything. If a non-frozen window is still up and I move it around, it'll make blurry replicas.

I've tried Norton and there's no viruses, but as soon as I run any sort of spyware destroyer (I use adaware) the screen will turn gray within a few seconds and then a blue screen will pop up with the words FATAL ERROR.

I've also tried to system restore on multiple occasions, but every time it says my restore has failed.

It's awful. I get about 15 minutes to and hour on the computer without having to restart.

I might just bring it in to a computer shop or something, but before I do that, can anyone throw out a suggestion?

[Deadfire]

Since we're on the subject of spyware, can anyone help me out?

See, I bought this computer for christmas, and until recently it'd been working very well. As of late it's been totally lame, however, and has sudden crashes for no apparent reason.

My whole computer will freeze up and I'll be able to move the mouse, but not click on anything. If a non-frozen window is still up and I move it around, it'll make blurry replicas.

I've tried Norton and there's no viruses, but as soon as I run any sort of spyware destroyer (I use adaware) the screen will turn gray within a few seconds and then a blue screen will pop up with the words FATAL ERROR.

I've also tried to system restore on multiple occasions, but every time it says my restore has failed.

It's awful. I get about 15 minutes to and hour on the computer without having to restart.

I might just bring it in to a computer shop or something, but before I do that, can anyone throw out a suggestion?

Well to tell you the truth is it's time for a new hard drive, all those errors are caused by that and noting the the System restore fatals, tells me that the partity on the hard drive is failing (this rarely happens unless it's a bad HD). the fact the computer boots and runs for more then 5 mins states that it's not a heat problem (also causes alot of those problems). This could be just a OS problem however as you stated it's clean of any errors, so it tell me the drive is to blame.

[Genma]

Well to tell you the truth is it's time for a new hard drive, all those errors are caused by that and noting the the System restore fatals, tells me that the partity on the hard drive is failing (this rarely happens unless it's a bad HD). the fact the computer boots and runs for more then 5 mins states that it's not a heat problem (also causes alot of those problems). This could be just a OS problem however as you stated it's clean of any errors, so it tell me the drive is to blame.

A faulty, 4 month old harddrive? Damn.

I know for a fact that the random freezings aren't a heating problem, though. They've actually occured less frequently as of late (knock on wood), and it usually only happens in Internet Explorer. I've ultimately decided to switch to Firefox now... and yeah. Nothing bad to note.

As for the system restore problems, yeah, probably something wrong with my HD. But my games are working fine and never freeze when I'm playing online (with the exception of Wolfenstein - ET, every so often). Anyway, I'll probably just buy a new HD this summer.

Thanks for your help.