Fix my computer

OK nerds... help me out here!

For the past week or so some of my programs on my Windows 7 have been randomly freezing from time to time, some (ie Skype) more often than others (ie Chrome), typically recovering about 15secs later. More recently, the whole computer has been freezing like that, preventing me from using any hardware at all for that time. And sometimes it doesn't recover at all.

Two points of interest. If I play a movie, the movie will sometimes go out of sync with the audio during a freeze, the encoders for video and audio sending back the signals in short bursts independently until they converge a little later. Also, recently, my computer has failed to notice my operating system a couple of times at start up.

I've checked for memory issues, malware, and voltage/temp etc issues. What should I check next?

admin: A new computer?

nzlockie: In it's current configuration it's about 5 years old. But typically I don't let my computers die that fast. By the looks of it, it seems like something specific is failing. I just hope not the motherboard.

admin: Oops, posted that one early.

Seriously, I'd be thinking the same as you, Memory Issues - Malware/Program files that don't get shut down when the program does - and power supply.

Failing that, these days I tend to just start shopping. I don't expect my computers to last more than a couple years these days.

I've had issues with Skype before where it would leave a program file running in the background. The only way to shut it down was to do so from the Task Manager. It was annoying. Every now and then it would start a new copy of this file running. Have 10 or so of those running and they might slow things down a bit.
Maybe just try leaving half the background programs off for a while and see if it makes a difference? Turn them on one by one and see which one makes the lag?

admin: Windows 8 is probably another incentive to try to get this one working properly again. It sure does suck.

Just discovered about 30 gigs of error logs here ... deleting these has actually improved my computer performance massively.

admin: http://securityreactions.tumblr.com/post/80268613398/when-a-friend-asks-me-to-clean-their-computer

Yip, seems to have been those error logs. No idea why logged errors would do that to me.

drafterman: Haha, yeah...