I'm Having Problems with my Computer

[crazydudecarlos]

Hello everyone that is reading this! I'm Crazydudecarlos and I've been having some issues with my laptop. And I need some help to figure what is wrong with it. Below I have listed the problems that I'm having with my laptop:

1. When ever I'm typing, for some reason my computer will click where ever the pointer is without me touching it.

2. My computer is slow as *cough* and when ever I'm trying to exit out of the web, the screen will freeze up on me.

3. The screen freezes alot and I have to restart my computer every time.

Well thats about it, I would really appreciate it if you guys can help me figure out what is wrong with my laptop.

If you guys know what is wrong with it please leave a post telling me what it is.

Thanks everyone.

[Myperson54]

There are probably a lot of things contributing to this, but just to be sure, I'll need you to check a few things:
- How old is the computer?
- How much free space is there in your hard drive?
- Do you have an antivirus?
- How many programs are you running at once when the freezing problem happens?

Oh, and what Operating system do you use?

[xamali]

Okay, I'm not really any good at tech stuff, but I'll see what I can do. As for the first issue, you are probably touching the the sensor, you are just not noticing it. Happened a lot with me when I used my brother's laptop.

As for the other issues, I can't really help you much, but perhaps some more information (What laptop is it that you are using, system, age, etc) might help people with figuring what the problem is, making it easier for them to help you.

Edit: Seems myperson beat me here, and I was right about more info being needed.

[cliffpanther]

1. is caused by you touching the touchpad. Disable it (One of the FN keys) if you use a mouse, or be more careful (some drivers have the option to decrease the touchpad's sensitivity, but it's pretty rare).
2 and 3... The first thing I'd do is running chkdsk and if it returns no errors, defrag the disk. If that doesn't help, run memtest86+ to see if your RAM isn't malfunctioning. And if that doesn't help, try reinstalling the system (if you're running Windows - well that system sometimes just needs to be reinstalled)
But it's hard to tell without further details, so please post basic system info (laptop model, processor, RAM parameters, OS, age of the laptop etc)

[crazydudecarlos]

There are probably a lot of things contributing to this, but just to be sure, I'll need you to check a few things:
- How old is the computer?
- How much free space is there in your hard drive?
- Do you have an antivirus?
- How many programs are you running at once when the freezing problem happens?

Oh, and what Operating system do you use?

I don't know how old my computer is. But my laptop has 57.5 GB left on the harddrive. And yes I do have Antivirus. And I only have the internet up when the computer slows down majorly and when it slows down the internet doesn't respond then a lot of other problems start happening.

[SirSlaughter]

There are probably a lot of things contributing to this, but just to be sure, I'll need you to check a few things:
- How old is the computer?
- How much free space is there in your hard drive?
- Do you have an antivirus?
- How many programs are you running at once when the freezing problem happens?

Oh, and what Operating system do you use?

I don't know how old my computer is. But my laptop has 57.5 GB left on the harddrive. And yes I do have Antivirus. And I only have the internet up when the computer slows down majorly and when it slows down the internet doesn't respond then a lot of other problems start happening.

one issue is that you have almost no space left on what seems to be a toaster at this point.

Uninstall any uneeded programs. run youir antivirus for a full scan. make sure there isn't anything malicious slowing you down.
Also, what antivirus do you have?
What OS are you running?

[crazydudecarlos]

I have Norton and I ran a scan yesterday and all the programs that are on my computer I need. anything that I don't I have already gotten rid of

[Myperson54]

I have Norton

That right there is part of the problem. Norton is notorious for slowing down computers. Uninstall, and get Avast instead: www.avast.com

[crazydudecarlos]

I have Norton 360 but I cant uninstall it it because my parents were the ones who installed it anyways so yea I have no choice

[Myperson54]

Damn. Well, if that's unavoidable, here are some tips: If you follow these, you should be able to speed up the computer considerably.
http://wikihow.com/Make-Your-Computer-Run-Faster

[Lief]

one issue is that you have almost no space left on what seems to be a toaster at this point.

You're kidding, right? You only need about 15% of the drive free, and considering that the laptop is most likely at least a few years old, it probably doesn't have a 500 gig (Or bigger) HDD, meaning that 57.5 gigs free is plenty.

[RobbieThe1st]

You're going to simply need to take control of your laptop. There are various methods of doing this, depending on what version you're using. For XP, for example: http://oit.ncsu.edu/resnet/xp-passwords-admin
Alternately, the other option is 'scorched earth' - backup your programs, use MagicalJellybeanKeyfinder to get the Windows keys(any any other application keys), and reinstall Windows from a CD(which you can download and make if you need).
This nay be what you want to do anyway, Windows gets slow over time if you are using poorly-designed applications(of which a lot of shareware and trials are).

[crazydudecarlos]

sorry guys my dad told me what was wrong with my laptop. the reason why its slow is because the processor is old because my laptop is old, and the mouse thing is because I have a old mouse, so yea that solves it all up. but thanks anyways guys I really appreciate it. You guys tried to help and made me happy so thanks for that.

[RobbieThe1st]

Um... Unless it's a good 8 years old, it should be plenty fast(P4 or better), and even a 10-year-old system can be 'good enough', provided you're careful about what you run(A P3 running Linux is plenty fast for browsing the web etc). Things haven't improved *that* much, especially in the last few years.
The problems you've described are mostly Windows problems... which may be exacerbated by an old system, and Norton makes it all the worse.
If you're willing to put some work in, you can probably improve the speed significantly. Put in a few $ for some more ram, and you can improve it even more.


For reference, I will point out that nothing has really improved within the last four or so years - I'm running a Phenom II on my desktops, a 2009 processor. It's plenty good for running today's games, and brand-new processors aren't *that* much better.