John writes:

<<I have Gateway P5 120. It periodically freezes, and an error message
appears.
I have to shut down and reboot to get going again.>>

Are you really getting a blue screen with white words?  (A crashed
computer). Or are you (as you say) simply getting a freeze, where nothing
will work, but you can still see the last window? A freeze may be a result
of insufficient memory, whereas the BSOD usually indicates some software or
hardware conflict.

You will need to supply much more detail to get an informed answer---there
could be 100's of possibilities.  We at least need to know which OS you
have, and your level of experience. Also what error message? and when does
this problem occur?

The commonest cause of freezes is having too many programs running in the
background, and improper procedure in re-opening after a crash or freeze.
(See my tutorial on crash procedure).

If this happens too frequently, eventually your registry can become badly
corrupted, and you will need to restore the registry, or even reformat.

Open Task Manager (Ctrl/Alt/Del) and see what's running in background---try
reducing this to the bare minimum.

There could be conflicting software. Try to isolate the cause by running
one program at a time, and see if a pattern emerges. Opening the computer
with Shift key held down will bypass most of the startup programs.

Don Penlington
Free computer tutorials at: http://www.geocities.com/donaldpen/
Also Fractal Galleries,  free icons,  poetry,  and beautiful Queensland beaches.

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