Alright so basically I have 3 types of freezing/crashing happening:

One, is the screen just goes black but the computer doesn't totally shut down (I can still talk for about 5 minutes after the "crash" to people on skype).

The second is the screen goes plain blue or white.

Finally, the third (and most prominent) is my computer freezes with the screen still visible and when I move my mouse around the color of the screen distorts.

(example: mouse stops moving even when I move the physical mouse around and after about 2 seconds of moving the "frozen mouse" around, the screen starts to distort with more and more intensity the more I move the mouse)

Any help please?

By the way, I recently got a fan that sits under the computer because I thought it was over heating but the problem persists even with the computer being cool.


EDIT: Also, with all cases, it doesn't shut the computer down. I have to hold the laptop's power button to shut it down.

What version of Windows are you running? What is the make and model of the laptop?

The make is a gateway P-6860FX running windows 7

Can you use the restore feature of the laptop?

I don't exactly know what you mean but I didn't back anything up.

Back up what you can. On some laptops, while they are starting up, you can see "F key" options for SETUP, BOOT OPTIONS, and RECOVERY. Recovery is what you're looking for

Well it doesn't freeze/crash unless I'm doing something like playing a game or switching webpages on the internet. But isn't backing up at this point a bad idea? Would it back up a virus if I had one?

"Also, with all cases, it doesn't shut the computer down. I have to hold the laptop's power button to shut it down"...

This is not a "normal" condition either. What are you using for virus and malware protection? So do you have a restore function? You would only back up things like pictures, music and personal documents, contacts and email addresses

I don't know what the restore function means. Also, I had avast but I removed it a while ago because it wouldn't shutdown when I told it to and it was using up too much of my CPU.

EDIT: I looked back on the conversation and realized the Restore fuction was what you were talking about on startup. I'm not sure if it has one or not. What would I have to do after I would do that?

So you are running without any protection? How old is this laptop? A built-in laptop RESTORE function will return the laptop to like it was when you brought it home and turned it on for this first time... Thus eliminating all current problems

Unless it's hardware related. I believe it's over 3 years old.

Does it fail to shutdown both on battery and AC adapter?

Not sure, I never have it off the adapter.

After 3+ years on the adapter, the battery might be useless now. Remove it and try shutting down...

You misinterpreted the problem. It only "doesn't shut down" when it crashes. If I tell it to shut down normally it does it without any problems. The shutdown thing was just a little extra information saying that when it crashes the computer doesn't shutdown completely.

Still, remove the battery and see if it still crashes at all... I know this sounds weird, but try it. Dead or shorted laptop batteries can cause all kinds of things

so remove the battery and shut my comp down while on the ac adapter? What would I be looking for while I do this?

Alright, my comp crashed again and now it says I don't have a genuine copy of windows 7....

"now it says I don't have a genuine copy of windows 7"...
Check the date and time... It may be way off. If so, you may have a dead CMOS battery on the motherboard

Nah, date and time are spot on .

Any more help? I'm still having the same problem.