What is causing my laptop to randomly freeze?

[laney6]

Sorry in advance if this sounds stupid as I am not very computer literate. I started having this problem when I tried to use my laptop yesterday. Prior to this, I had left it on for 4-5 days, only locking it and not putting it to sleep/hibernate/shut down. This might have something to do with it as I usually shut it down following any use.

Anyway, yesterday I unlocked it and was viewing videos on Youtube using Chrome, when the video suddenly stopped playing and the browser stopped responding. This was after about 15 minutes of using the computer. I tried to close the browser and the entire computer just froze. I couldn't click on anything and the cursor was just spinning in circles. I tried ctrl+alt+del and nothing happened. After several minutes of waiting, the computer unfroze and the ctrl+alt+del screen came up. I just pressed cancel thinking the computer unfroze, which it did temporarily, then closed chrome. I tried opening a new window and the computer froze prior to doing so, leaving me once again unable to click on anything. Frustrated, I just turned the computer off. When I tried using it again, the same thing happened. It worked for 10 minutes, then froze while I was running a Malwarebytes scan. I just turned the computer off and tried again. Same thing. I turned it off and thought I would try again today.

The computer once again worked fine when I turned it on but is now frozen and has been for over 15 minutes. A message just popped up saying Microsoft Windows is not responding. The program may respond again if you wait. Do you want to end this process? This message came up yesterday too when the computer was frozen.

This is really driving me crazy. Please help me figure out and fix whatever is wrong with my laptop.

 

[linnemeyerhere]

Hello laney6 welcome to SevenForums,
When was the last time you cleaned the laptop with compressed air into the cooler intake. Please make sure the laptop isn't overheating. Then boot into safe mode and run updated Malwarebytes and your Anti Virus.

 

[laney6]

Hi linnemeyerhere, thanks for your quick response. I probably haven't cleaned it in like 5-6 months. I just did so. Although, the computer does not seem to be overheating. I have felt it get hot before but that does not seem to be the case now.

I also booted into safe mode and tried to run both my antivirus and malwarebytes. The malwarebytes scan keeps freezing at the same point (while currently scanning C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\NlsLexicons0011.dll). The avast scan also keeps freezing and is unable to complete (I waited like 3 hours for it to finish).

 

[linnemeyerhere]

That's not good news. Have you ever cleaned out the unneeded programs in your start up? Each time you add software it places it's self in the active start up and then steals some resources what for you to open it up.
There also was a recent large W7 update....are you current with these updates and if so maybe a restore back to a point when all was good could be in order?
Was the laptop running well and then all of a sudden this freezing began?

 

[kboconnell]

Not sure if this is relevant to you or not.
Do you use Apple products on you laptop/computer?
It sounds very similar to what was happening to me. I found out it was Apple products on my laptop freezing it up all the time randomly. No idea why however, once I uninstalled the Apple programs I didn't have the problem anymore. Whenever I need to download my photos etc of my Apple phone, I just make sure I uninstall the Apple products again.
Just a suggestion - It worked for me!
Hope this helps!