Thread: Computer slow/freezing up

Ya.. I'm assuming it's a virus or something. Started happening all of a sudden like 10 mins ago. What to do? I only have ad-aware, and I'm not sure how good that is.

Try the ad aware first. If that doesn't work then the first thing to do it is to stop the virus from running. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del and click on the processes tab. Find the one that is hogging your resources and force it to quit.

Then download and run AVG, which is a free virus remover.

Get AVG Free and Spybot - Search and Destroy. After downloading and updating AVG and Spybot, run a scan with each. They may be able to remove whatever is lurking in the dark corners of your computer.

Of course, my computer slows down dramatically after it's been on too long, and I just reboot it and it's fine. Still, though, I'd definitely recommend getting those two programs if you don't have them.

Edit: Darn, Ninja snuck in there all ninja-like...

Ok. Thanks guys! I'll download those now. I checked the processes, and, not to be really dumb, but is explorer.exe just IE, or is it something else? Because that's apparently the one hogging all the resources. (I don't use IE btw, just firefox.)

Explorer.exe is the Windows environment, to put it simply. The window manager. What you see (taskbar, window dressing, Start button...). Try restarting it. In Task Manager, hit End Task. Your taskbar will vanish, but DON'T PANIC! Then flip over to the Applications tab in Task Manager, and hit New Task. Type explorer.exe and hit enter.

That works for me sometimes, as I get random freezes of my taskbar. Note that you may have to reset your network or battery or volume icons in System Tray by right-clicking on the taskbar and going to Properties > Notification Area.

Awesome. Thanks MoSzszszsz.

The best way to fix your computer is to flash your webcam and upload the picture that it takes to my PM box

When explorer starts behaving strangely, you might want to run a system check. It could be faulty hardware (most likely RAM) not a virus.