Windows Vista Keeps Freezing/Crashing

[psufootball]

Alright so I have a problem with my laptop.  It's a Dell Inspiron 1545 with Windows Vista Home Premium, 3 GBs of RAM, and 134 GB of hard drive space (62.8 GB free).  It's just over a year old, I got it last June.  And wouldn't you know, I only got a 1-year warranty and it was perfect up until about a week ago.

So here's the thing, it still runs flawlessly.  As fast as ever, does everything I want it to.  But then if I leave it idle for a bit and come back like a half hour later, I'm screwed.  It will have not been touched for half an hour, I come back, move the mouse, click on Firefox or whatever, and that's it.  Everything just freezes.  Sometimes I can still move my mouse (of course clicking it does nothing) but sometimes I can't move it.  None of the keys do anything.  The only thing I can do is either unplug the power and take out the battery or hold down the power button for 6 seconds for a manual shut down.  Also, when I re-boot it and it brings up the desktop, I gotta make sure I'm there when it loads up because it seems if after the desktop and everything loads if I'm not there in like 5 minutes it'll crash/freeze when I get there and try to open a program.

It's not just Firefox that is causing the crashing.  If I press the button that makes the start menu pop up after leaving it idle, that will make it freeze.  If I click My Computer after leaving it idle, that will make it freeze.

I have already gone to Control Panel >>> Mobile PC >>> Change When Computer Sleeps and set it to Never sleep or Hibernate, but that didn't solve the problem.

I know some people might say it's a virus or whatever but I really don't think it is.  I have lots of protection on my computer, Norton, Avira, MalwareBytes, Ad-Aware, and I think a few other things to. 

When I first had this problem about a week ago it was just freezing randomly while I was using it.  Then I did a system restore and now it's freezing after I leave it idle.

This is just so frustrating because it still runs perfect (I'm typing this from it right now!) but I can't go on like this.  I just don't know what to do anymore.  In the past few weeks my car has had issues, the furniture on my back patio has gotten ruined and my microwave has, literally, burst into flames.  I don't have the money to take it somewhere to get it fixed right now and I need it fixed ASAP. 

[JJ 3000]

I know some people might say it's a virus or whatever but I really don't think it is.  I have lots of protection on my computer, Norton, Avira, MalwareBytes, Ad-Aware, and I think a few other things to. 

You're running two anti-virus programs. Two can be just as bad, if not worse, than none at all. You need to remove either Norton or Avira. I'd suggest dumping Norton.

[psufootball]

I knew someone would say that.  Look, I know you're trying to help but I'm not interested in discussing my anti-virus options now.  I've had both for a while with no problems but this freezing/crashing started like a week ago.  I don't know why having two anti-virus problems would cause it to crash/freeze when left idle, after months of having them work fine.

And I'm not going to dump Norton, which was paid for (1-year free) for Avira (free version).  I hate Norton too but it was free, after the 1-year subscription to it is up I'm switching to Kaspersky.

[Allan]

1) Having two AV's running resident simultaneously utilizes an unnecessary amount of system resources. This can cause any number of issues, including freezing - especially if they run simultaneous scans. It is also possible for two resident AV's to conflict with one another.

2) You don't get to pick and choose the advice you receive. If you don't like it, you can ignore it. But don't tell us what you are and are not willing to hear. More important, it's easy enough to disable one simply as a test even if you choose to keep both running after the test (though I assure you, that would be a mistake).

[psufootball]

Alright I'll try uninstalling Avira and see if that helps.

My apologies for being rude in my previous post, if it's any compensation you have a great avatar. 

[Allan]

You don't need to uninstall it - just disable it from starting with the system. And send my regard to Joe Paterno.

[psufootball]

You don't need to uninstall it - just disable it from starting with the system. And send my regard to Joe Paterno.

Actually it had been annoying me in a couple different ways so uninstalling it probably was the best thing.  I'll leave it idle for like half an hour to see if it worked.

And I'm glad someone understands the PSU, are you a grad?

[Allan]

Not from there, no.

[psufootball]

Alright so after uninstalling Avira and restarting my computer I let it sit for like 30-45 minutes.  I came back, clicked the start button (or whatever they call it now in Vista) and it froze/crashed.  Anyone have any ideas of what I should do now?  I can provide any details you might need.

[Allan]

Okay. We need to do a clean boot to see if the problem is hardware or software related. You have two choices. The easiest way is to boot to safe mode and see if the problem occurs there. Alternatively, you can use msconfig to do a selective startup (disable everything from loading) and reboot and let it sit. If the problem still occurs, it's almost certainly hardware related. If not, it's probably some process loading with the system.

BTW, my guess would be hardware - most likely ram. Have you done a diagnostic on the ram?

[coastie65]

OK. He said he had Avira, Norton ( A known resource hog ), AdAware " And I think a few other things Too" ( I am assuming that Malewarebytes is on demand only, which is fine). AdAware should go as that thing isn't all that great either. As an example, I have Avast! installed for my A/V and Webroot Spysweeper as my antispyware, which are running real time. I have Malewarebytes and SUPERantispyware as on demand scanners and they do not run actively. As has been stated, you can have too much of that stuff installed ( you should only have 1 Anti Virus app running actively ). Another thing that comes to mind is what is the lappy sitting on? There could be a temp issue ( cooling pad is preferred ).

[Allan]

First of all, there's no such thing as "too much stuff installed". It doesn't matter what's installed, only what's running. As for Ad Aware, that's old school and is essentially useless - I agree.  And please, stop with the "known resource hog". Norton products have made huge advances in recent years and are no longer the excess baggage they used to be.

[psufootball]

Okay. We need to do a clean boot to see if the problem is hardware or software related. You have two choices. The easiest way is to boot to safe mode and see if the problem occurs there. Alternatively, you can use msconfig to do a selective startup (disable everything from loading) and reboot and let it sit. If the problem still occurs, it's almost certainly hardware related. If not, it's probably some process loading with the system.

BTW, my guess would be hardware - most likely ram. Have you done a diagnostic on the ram?

Alright I'll try booting in safe mode.

And I'm sorry but I don't really understand what you mean by doing a diagnostic on the RAM?

OK. He said he had Avira, Norton ( A known resource hog ), AdAware " And I think a few other things Too" ( I am assuming that Malewarebytes is on demand only, which is fine). AdAware should go as that thing isn't all that great either. As an example, I have Avast! installed for my A/V and Webroot Spysweeper as my antispyware, which are running real time. I have Malewarebytes and SUPERantispyware as on demand scanners and they do not run actively. As has been stated, you can have too much of that stuff installed ( you should only have 1 Anti Virus app running actively ). Another thing that comes to mind is what is the lappy sitting on? There could be a temp issue ( cooling pad is preferred ).

If uninstalling Avira didn't stop it, I don't think getting rid of Ad-Aware is going to make much difference but I'll close it anyway.  And it's sitting on a cooling pad...

[psufootball]

Okay so I booted in safe mode, waited a bit, wiggled the mouse and it did not freeze.  Just to make sure I waited a bit longer, then came back and it still worked without freezing.

So what does this mean, some of my software is causing it to crash?

[Allan]

Open msconfig and on the startup tab choose "selective startup" (disable everything) and reboot. If the problem does not recur start adding items back one or two at a time, rebooting after each, until the problem recurs and you'll have identified the offending process. It's time consuming, but it should work.