Gateway Laptop Is Frozen – 7 Reasons You Should Know In 2023!
Imagine you are in the middle of something and suddenly your gateway laptop is frozen and stuck. It can greatly pause your productivity or entertainment and leave you frustrated.
However, this starts happening to me when my laptop constantly overheats without any reason and freezes unless I press the power button. After that, I came to know that one of the most common reasons for a laptop freezing is overheating due to excessive programs running at a time.
The quickest fix was to reduce the load on a laptop by closing all the programs, but that wasn’t a permanent solution to the problem. However, if your gateway laptop is frozen and you’re unable to identify it, don’t worry!
In this blog post, I have explained 7 possible reasons why your gateway laptop is frozen, and how to fix it! Continue reading to know more.
Make Sure That Your Computer Is Frozen Or Not:
To understand if your gateway laptop is fully dead-locked or not, move the mouse cursor over the screen. If it’s not moving, your gateway laptop is locked and requires a forced reboot by pressing the power button.
You can also use the Caps Lock button on your keyboard as it’s also the quickest fix for a laptop. If the light of the Caps Lock button is up on your keyboard, it means that you can reboot it without turning it off with the Windows Task Manager.
However, if you are unaware of how to open Windows Task Manager, then press Ctrl + Alt +Del and go to frozen programs. There you will see if the problem is caused by the software you’re running or not.
On the other hand, if your Caps Lock button is not working, it means that your gateway laptop is dead-locked and the only way to reboot is by pressing the power button for 10 seconds, forcing your gateway laptop to shut down.
7 Reasons Why Your Gateway Laptop Is Frozen:
1. Running Heavy Software That Laptop Can’t Process Faster:
One of the main reasons that your gateway laptop is frozen randomly is due to running high-end programs. At some point such as rendering high-definition video, the software loses control of the application that the Windows operating system fails to recognize.
However, updating the window files or reinstalling the program may prevent this. On the other hand, some unwanted program errors cause memory leaks which block memory resources and often affect the system’s performance over time.
2. Malware & Viruses:
If you are not giving any importance to antiviruses like I did, you may experience freezing and even lagging during your routine work. At some point, I didn’t consider antiviruses an effective protection until I realized that my laptop was infected and playing a huge role in my laptop freezing.
The virus infected my Windows system files and corrupted them which just froze my screen or even blacked out without any reason.
3. Processor Overheating:
Sometimes, if your laptop’s processors are not working effectively they cause overheating, and internal fans take more load to cool it down. If you are operating your gateway laptop in a room without air conditioning at a 90-degree, it can drastically affect your laptop’s performance and lifespan.
The best way to identify processor overheating is by listening to your laptop’s unusual sound caused by internal fans. If that’s the case, it would be great if you remove the dust from it or replace the thermal paste on the processor.
4. Multitasking:
Multitasking is good, it can save time and boost productivity. But, if your gateway laptop doesn’t support your multitasking, it’s going to be a trouble for you.
In our modern times, we normally like to open multiple tabs, browse the internet, and run different programs which means our laptop requires more memory power to run efficiently.
However, if your laptop doesn’t have enough memory power, chances are it may crash, black out the screen temporarily, or freeze. I recommend checking the program autorunning setting and disabling it. This will significantly improve the speed of startup of your laptop.
To do this:
- Go to the task manager
- Open startup applications
- Disable unnecessary applications
6. Outdated Drivers:
Drivers are the main internal component of a laptop that runs the operating system efficiently. If they are outdated or expired, they may cause malfunctioning such as your gateway laptop frozen or blacking out.
Make sure that your Windows drivers are not corrupted or outdated, otherwise, the applications you’re running may not appropriately interact with your laptop’s hardware.
The good thing is if you have the latest version of the gateway laptop, you can always update or reinstall new drivers from the Windows Update Center hassle-free.
7. Not Having Enough Memory Wrapped Up:
Lack of Memory RAM is something you can’t fix programmatically. Despite having temporary issues with the laptop freezing. The best you can do is to increase the memory dump.
The best way to identify if you are running on a low-memory ram than you need is to diagnose it by running a test in Windows Memory Diagnostic. Below I have mentioned how you can do this by following the simple steps:
- Open the start menu box, and type Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool in the search box.
- Click on it, and your system will automatically reboot to diagnose the issue. It will also update you if you have other problems with your laptop.
If there’s nothing wrong after you get the diagnosis, it’s time to upgrade your laptop
How To Prevent My Gateway Laptop From Getting Frozen?
1. Clean Up Your Windows Temporary Files:
If you are running the Microsoft Windows Operating system on your gateway laptop, you may know that Microsft uses a cache to store temporary files.
However, these temporary files consume extra space. Interfering with Windows causes performance issues. By clearing all the cache files, you can free up the space. To clear the Windows cache files, do the following steps:
- Press Win +R, type %temp% and click ok
- Select all the files by pressing Ctrl +A and permanently delete all files
2. Check Your Hardware For Any Malfunctioning:
Another reason why your gateway laptop is frozen is due to malfunctioning hardware. If your hardware is not responding as speedily as needed, your Windows operating system may not be able to access it at the necessary rate.
On the other hand, you may also experience fragmentation errors on your device due to abnormal termination. The good thing is that Windows has a built-in tool that can assist you in identifying errors and fixing them.
However, if you want to do it manually, follow these steps:
- Right-click Start, and select terminal (Administrator)
- Type “chdsk” at the command prompt and press enter
By following these two steps, your gateway laptop will start identifying your hard drive for any malfunction.
3. Run The System File Checker:
As I said before, corrupted files and viruses are the common reason your gateway laptop is frozen and blacking out. You can check for any kind of errors or corrupted files by running a system file checker. This built-in feature in your OS will help you restore the original file of your system.
If you have good luck, it will automatically fix the problem that you are experiencing. Follow the below steps to run the system file checker.
- Open the command line from the search box
- Type the following command “sfc/scannow”
Windows will start scanning files automatically if it finds any corrupted or missing file, Windows will try to fix it
Final Words:
No matter how well you maintain your gateway laptop, even if it’s the latest version, it will still hang at some point. However, this could be any problem such as a damaged internal component, an issue with the operating system, a faulty AC power adapter, or expired drivers.
The point is every issue comes with a solution, and the solutions we have mentioned above are the ones that you can do by yourself without calling for professional help.
But, if you think these possible reasons aren’t something you’re experiencing, then I recommend calling a friend or taking your laptop for repair to a technician.