Hello all,

My sister's laptop, a Toshiba Satellite A 105 - S4084 keeps freezing. Sometimes it will boot fully, sometimes it will freeze on the welcome screen, etc.

I tried to run disk cleanup, and run a malware cleanup program, but it froze in the process of both.

Any suggestions on the next path to take?

Thanks!

Do a hard drive and RAM test on the machine.. you will probably need to download something and put it on a CD to do these, I Suggest Hiren's Boot CD. Very helpful tool for testing hard ware on computers..

You will obviously need another computer(Working properly..) To download, and burn a copy so you can use it on the machine.

If you get Hiren's Boot CD, to test the ram go to "Dos Boot" then select Testing Tools, select RAM Test (#1), Mem Test(#1). Let it pass a few times, best to just leave it overnight to see if there are any errors..

For the Hard Drive test, select Hard Drive Tools, go to Hard Disc Sentinel, it will tell you the type of hard drive in the machine, then select the proper test for that hard drive. Do a long/extended test on it, and wait for results..

suggest booting into Safe Mode and then using the run->eventvwr.msc to review
past events; look for errors in red first
eg:

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Application Hang
Event Category: (101)
Event ID: 1002
Date: 7/2/2010
Time: 8:11:59 AM
User: N/A
Computer: LTBEARD
Description:
Hanging application helpctr.exe, version 5.1.2600.2180, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 41 70 70 6c 69 63 61 74 Applicat
0008: 69 6f 6e 20 48 61 6e 67 ion Hang
0010: 20 20 68 65 6c 70 63 74 helpct
0018: 72 2e 65 78 65 20 35 2e r.exe 5.
0020: 31 2e 32 36 30 30 2e 32 1.2600.2
0028: 31 38 30 20 69 6e 20 68 180 in h
0030: 75 6e 67 61 70 70 20 30 ungapp 0
0038: 2e 30 2e 30 2e 30 20 61 .0.0.0 a
0040: 74 20 6f 66 66 73 65 74 t offset
0048: 20 30 30 30 30 30 30 30 0000000
0050: 30 0