Freezing

[MattE]

I know nothing about computers except how to play games so I need help from some people with a bit of knowledge.

For some reason whenever I double click on a program to install or just run it my computer freezes. And I should mention It's only things that have been downloaded that freeze, I've had no problems with programs off a CD. But every single time I try to install or run a program it freezes.

I downloaded a tax pack and it froze when I tried to run it.
Games that are already installed freeze.
And installation programs freeze.

Any ideas on how I could solve this problem?

Cheers.

 

[Meleager]

do you know your computer specs? what operating system are you running?

 

[MattE]

Anything in particular you need to know?

I'm running Win XP Home.

There's a sticker on the side of the tower so I'll just read out what it says.

Processor:
Intel Pentium 4 Processor 2.8GHz

Memory:
512MB PC2100 DDR

Hard Drive:
120GB 7200RPM

There's other stuff but I'm not sure what is important and what's not. There's stuff on; optical storage, graphics, special freatures, modem, networking, keyboard and mouse, operating system (mentioned above) and bundled software.

 

[Meleager]

I have a feeling about this. Scince things of CD work fine i think your hard drive is too fragmented.

Go Start -> All Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> Disk Defragmentor
In the disk defragmentor click analyse (make take time), after that is done a box will pop up asking if you want a report, click show report and tell us what your total fragmentation is

 

[MattE]

As with everything else I have no idea what all this stuff in the report is.

I saved a copy of the report and a bit of cut and paste. So here is what it says:

Volume PRESARIO C:
Volume size = 111 GB
Cluster size = 4 KB
Used space = 41.98 GB
Free space = 68.66 GB
Percent free space = 62 %

Volume fragmentation
Total fragmentation = 3 %
File fragmentation = 7 %
Free space fragmentation = 0 %

File fragmentation
Total files = 121,939
Average file size = 445 KB
Total fragmented files = 427
Total excess fragments = 7,663
Average fragments per file = 1.06

Pagefile fragmentation
Pagefile size = 767 MB
Total fragments = 1

Folder fragmentation
Total folders = 7,414
Fragmented folders = 9
Excess folder fragments = 112

Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation
Total MFT size = 230 MB
MFT record count = 130,271
Percent MFT in use = 55 %
Total MFT fragments = 3

 

[Meleager]

Fragmentation isn't the problem.

Do you know if you have an anti-virus program installed?

 

[MattE]

Norton Personal Firewall and Norton Anti Virus

 

[Meleager]

I am pretty much just going through the normal checks here...

OK. See if you have any updates you haven't done.
Start -> All Programs -> Windows Update
hopefully it will be intuative enough to follow.

 

[MattE]

Norton has a live update thingy so I presumed you meant that.

Update done.

 

[Meleager]

No its different. You need to use windows update.

 

[MattE]

Sorry I cant find what your talking about.

 

[Meleager]

click this link and follow the prompts
www.windowsupdate.com

 

[MattE]

No high priority updates so I installed all the custom ones.

 

[Meleager]

How long do you wait when the computer freezes. Could you freeze the computer, on purpose, and press the numlock key and see if the led on your keyboard lights up / turns off.

 

[MattE]

It freezes immediately. The second you try to open a program it goes.

 

[Meleager]

How long do you wait after it freezes before you restart? I dont suspect this is the problem but it is worth checking.

 

[MattE]

A minute or 2. At first I left it for a while, one time I left it for 10 mins. But now I know staright away that it's frozen and just reset straight away.

 

[Meleager]

Actually this could be the problem. Its not uncommon for a program to take longer then 30 sec to start on my machine and its got better specs then yours.

When you double click on a program try leaving it for a generous 5 minutes and see if it starts. If it doesn't then we will start getting a bit more indepth.

EDIT - ok you edited your post....

is it just games (appart from the tax program)

 

[MattE]

Okay I'll give it a go and get back to you later. 30 mins or so I guess.

 

[Meleager]

I edited my post after you edited yours, just so you know when you get back.