Computer crashes have a habit of occurring at the most inopportune moments. You can guarantee that everything is going to fail seconds before you were due to hit the Save button.
So, wouldn’t it be great if you could tell when a crash was about to happen? It turns out that you can—computer crashes are nowhere near as random as they might appear.
Here are several warning signs that your computer is about to crash, along with some tips on what to do if you come across them.
1. A Noisy Hard Drive
Although most modern high-end laptops now use solid state drives (SSDs), traditional hard drives are still commonplace in budget machines and some desktop computers.Traditional hard drives are mechanical—they have moving parts. And just like anything else with moving parts, the pieces can wear out, break down, and stop working. Research from backup company Backblaze found the average life expectancy of a hard drive was three to five years.
Although the list of possible reasons for boot errors is almost endless, you can be sure that they all point to an increased risk of a laptop crash.
If you see messages like “Boot device not found,” there’s a high chance that your copy of Windows has gotten corrupted. In turn, that means the chances of a crash have grown exponentially. It’s especially true if the boot errors only appear some of the time.
Solution
We’ve written a guide about how to fix a litany of boot errors on Windows 10. Work through the solutions and see if any can help. In the worst case, you may need to reinstall your operating system.
A computer crash isn’t always hardware-based; software can also cause problems.
One of the most simple-yet-overlooked reasons for software issues is your computer’s specifications. If an app needs more processing power than your computer can provide, your machine will slow to a crawl and often stop working altogether.
Solution
Be sensible; don’t try to edit Photoshop images on a six-year-old laptop with 2GB of RAM and don’t simultaneously run more programs than your computer can handle.
Sluggish performance is a strong indicator of an imminent computer crash. However, if your bid to locate the problem in your machine’s software has failed, there’s a high likelihood that hardware is to blame.
Solution
There are hundreds of components in a computer, many of which could be to blame. Rather than blindly attacking the problem, use some free benchmarking tools to try and discover which part of your equipment is faulty.
If your computer’s fan is louder than normal, it indicates overheating inside your machine—your fan is working overtime in an attempt to get on top of the problem.
If your laptop or desktop’s internal components are too warm, the situation can eventually lead to a crash and even hardware damage.
Solution
You can use a PC monitoring tool like SpeedFan to investigate the problem and see what temperature your CPU and GPU are reporting.
If everything is too hot, open up your desktop and clean out its fans with a can of compressed air. Laptop owners have fewer options, but you can still try to clean out the exhaust fan or buy a cooling pad.
6. Hardware Conflicts
What happens when two pieces of software try to use the same hardware component at the same? Well, you’ve got yourself a hardware conflict.
Hardware conflicts are not black and white. A problem might manifest itself in one app while being perfectly fine in another.
When a hardware conflict occurs, your computer will become unstable. At best, the app you’re using might repeatedly crash. At worst, you’ll suffer from a never-ending stream of “blue screens of death.”
Solution
The easiest way to see whether you have a hardware conflict is to look in the Windows Device Manager app. Any problems are highlighted with a yellow exclamation mark.
If you have a problem, reinstalling the hardware’s drivers might help. If not, try disabling one of the problematic devices in Device Manager.
7. File and Program Corruption
A classic sign of a slow-growing problem is random file and program corruption errors. Files that always worked suddenly don’t open, or only work on occasion. They may or may not be accompanied by an error message.
Lots of things could be causing the error—malware, failing hard drives, failing internal components, and corrupted files could all be to blame.
Solution
As a first step, run your anti-virus. Malware is often the root cause of a laptop crash. It’s also worth checking your hard drive for errors and ensure that you’re trying to open the file in the correct app.
How to Monitor Your Computer’s Reliability
We understand—that’s a lot of things you need to be aware of. Most people have neither the time nor the memory to stay abreast of it all.
Luckily, Windows offers a couple of tools that can help.
Reliability Monitor: The Reliability Monitor gives your computer a score of 1-10 on a Stability Index. It also lists critical events, warnings, and other information, each of which has a link to let you see more technical information. Any serious threats to your machine’s stability should show up here.
Disk Error Checking: Windows lets you scan your drives for errors. To perform a scan, right-click on the drive, and go to Properties > Tools > Error Checking > Check.
Right now, there’s an abundant number of in-demand computer programming jobs, and an abundant number of free online programming courses to help you land one of those jobs—even without a traditional computer science degree.
We’ll show you where to find these excellent online programming classes. If you don’t know the first thing about programming, check out our introduction to what coding is.
MIT OpenCourseWare is incredible. Many years ago, when I was struggling through a Linear Algebra course in college, MIT OCW came to my rescue. Complete courses are available online for free, and you can go through them at your own pace.
That Linear Algebra course (no longer available, sadly) is a strong contender for The Best College Course I’ve Ever Taken. It was all video lectures, but the professor knew his stuff and he presented the material in an easy-to-digest manner. It truly validated MIT’s reputation as an educational institute.
edX is a provider of free college-level online courses, jointly spearheaded by MIT and Harvard University. Not only are the courses available without charge, the organization itself is non-profit, so you can rest easy knowing that you won’t be exploited by ulterior motives.
Courses on edX can be Weekly or Self-Paced. Subjects span the entire range of topics you might find at any accredited university, but there’s a heavy skew towards Computer Science, Engineering, and Business & Management. They’re also divided into Introductory, Intermediate, and Advanced levels for your convenience.
edX also offers Certificate Programs, which are course curriculum that build toward mastery in a specific area, like Front-End Web Development or Data Science. These are handy for deeper learning.
Coursera is a free online course platform that’s backed by Stanford University and venture capitalists. Coursera collaborates with various universities and organizations to provide their courses, and earns revenue through its Certificate programs.
What’s nice is that Coursera focuses on Specializations: sets of courses designed to build your skills in a particular topic, but not so comprehensively as a full program. For example, the “Data Structures and Algorithms” six-course specialization covers Basic Data Structures, Basic Algorithms, Graph Algorithms, String Algorithms, Advanced Algorithms, and Genome Assembly.
Note that not all courses are free, but many are. Courses are self-paced but have definite start and end dates, meaning you’ll have to go through them as they’re available. Today’s courses may not be there tomorrow, but new ones may show up in their place.
PVTuts is a free online repository of video courses for learning programming languages. It hasn’t been updated since 2013, but the video library is still a great resource for newbies. Just know that these courses are strictly about language syntax and nothing else.
Available topics include four general programming languages (C++, C#, Java, and SQL) and six web programming languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, ASP.NET, and XML).
Udacity is yet another online course platform, but unlike MIT OCW, edX, and Coursera, Udacity strictly focuses on topics related to programming, data science, and engineering. No math, no social sciences, no humanities. It’s all about technology, and arguably better for it.
The goal of Udacity is to prepare you for occupational success in one of its tech-related fields. The platform places a lot of attention on its Nanodegree Programs, which are compact curriculums (usually completed in under a year) designed to get you job-ready as quickly as possible. But Nanodegrees cost anywhere from $100 to $500 each.
Don’t want to pay anything? That’s fine. You can eschew the whole curriculum-based approach and stick to individual free courses.
Udemy is an online education marketplace where anyone can create (and even sell) their own courses for others to consume. This is quite the double-edged sword: it allows skilled folks to share their knowledge without an education degree, but you have to wade through a lot of crap to find it.
The programming courses on Udemy range across all kinds of topics. You’ll find everything from Python-based data crunching to the basics of ethical hacking, from Java fundamentals to master-level web development. You’ll also find a lot of courses related to game development.
Note: Never pay full price for a Udemy course! The Udemy marketplace frequently holds massive sales, slashing prices anywhere from 50 to 90 percent off. While you wait, check out the best free Udemy courses.
If your goal is to become a proficient web developer, whether front-end or back-end, then I highly recommend either Free Code Camp (which teaches HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and React) or The Odin Project (which teaches HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Ruby on Rails).
These two are comprehensive courses, both 100 percent free, that will take you from zero to hero at your own pace. Even if you have no coding experience at all, you’ll be fine. Expect to invest several months from start to finish so you can really understand the concepts taught. Don’t rush it.
Khan Academy is one of the internet’s greatest treasures. This non-profit education platform has been a wonderful source of free education for the past decade, and it’s only getting better. Want to learn Calculus? Biology? World History? How to do your taxes or invest your money? It’s all here.
To be fair, the Computer Science and Computer Programming sections are playing catch-up, which is why it’s so low on this list. You can only learn JavaScript at the moment, plus the basics of algorithms and cryptography, but it’s certainly worth keeping an eye on.
YouTube is very hit or miss. Thousands of tutorial playlists exist, but too many of them are superficial or downright wrong. Of the ones that seem promising, a good chunk of them are incomplete. And of the ones that are complete, a significant portion are outdated.
That being said, if you have a discerning eye, YouTube can be a great resource for learning how to program. Start with our roundup of the best YouTube programming tutorials.
OpenCourser isn’t an education platform like the other sites listed here. Rather, it’s a search engine that aggregates thousands of free online courses from around the web and brings them to your fingertips.
As of this writing, over 900 free online programming courses are cataloged by OpenCourser, with many more added every day. Yes, you’ll find a bunch of courses from edX, Coursera, Udacity, etc. but you’ll also find some from elsewhere, like Saylor Academy. At the very least, it’s a convenient way to search many of the above platforms at once.
Codecademy is a series of interactive online courses that aim to teach you the basics of a handful of programming languages and frameworks. Each course is a gamified, step-by-step process that holds your hand all the way from beginning to end.
But a word of warning before you dive into Codecademy: the things you’ll learn here are extremely basic and superficial. Codecademy teaches you how to write code, but it doesn’t teach you how to think like a programmer. Many first-time newbies end up frustrated because they don’t know what to do with the knowledge they’ve picked up.
If you have prior coding experience and simply want to learn the syntax of a new language, then Codecademy is actually pretty useful. If you consider yourself a beginner, then you should avoid Codecademy for now.
Lynda is home to over 6,000 different online courses spread across 12 tech-related fields (e.g. Animation, CAD, IT, Marketing, Photography) and hundreds of more specific topics of interest. With over 670 courses, the Programming category makes up a huge chunk of Lynda’s content.
Topics covered include Foundational Programming Concepts, Database Management, Game Development, Mobile Development, Web Development, and, of course, courses for individual programming languages. What’s nice is that courses are divided into Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels, so you can always find the ones most relevant to you.
Your notebook’s CD drive is one of the first components to go belly up. A dead lens is the main reason behind an optical drive’s failure to read or write data to a CD. Another reason might be a damaged drive belt, but it can be replaced with a new one. An average optical drive lasts for a year and stops functioning because the laser wears out or slips out of alignment.
If your notebook’s optical drive stops reading or writing data, then you should replace it with a new drive. However, you can easily fix a laptop CD drive if there is a minor software or hardware problem. This guide will assist you in troubleshooting your notebook’s optical drive.
Click thumbnail to view full-size
Step 1
1. Use Microsoft Fixit
Microsoft’s very own software fix allows users to fix CD/DVD drive problems. Install and run this program if any of the following problems occurs:
Your notebook optical drive is disabled
The optical drive cannot read data
It cannot write data to a CD or DVD
No CD/DVD drive icon
The optical drive driver is missing or corrupt
Visit Microsoft’s official Fixit site and click on the Run button to download the program on your desktop.
Step 1: Double-click on the installer. Once ready, it will ask you to accept the terms and conditions. Click on Accept. The installer will download a diagnostic tool package and the Fixit engine.
Step 2: You will see two options. Click on the recommended option. The diagnostic will detect problems and apply a patch if it finds any.
Step 3: Choose your CD/DVD drive. Next, select any one of the two options. If your notebook’s optical drive has reading issues, select the first option. For troubleshooting CD writing issues, select the second option.
Step 4: The next screen will ask you to insert a readable/writeable media. Based on the choice you have made, insert a writeable/readable CD and then choose the optical drive.
Step 5: The Fixit engine will detect and troubleshoot problems. Once complete, it will show the completion window with status showing as “Fixed”.
Fixing Registry Entry Errors
2. System Registry
Can’t see the CDROM drive on My Computer? Well, the problem might be connected to your Windows system registry. A registry entry may get corrupted by uninstalling CD burning software. Because of this, Windows cannot access to the CDROM drive. To fix this, follow these steps:
1. Start > Run > type REGEDIT and press the Enter key. This will open the registry editor.
2. Navigate to the registry entry as shown in the screenshot above.
3. You will find two unwanted entries – UpperFilters and LowerFilters. Right-click each entry and click on Delete. You can also single-click on them and press the delete button to remove them.
4. Exit the window via the File menu and reboot your notebook. You can now see the CD/DVD icon on My Computer.
Additional Tips
Reboot your laptop. When it restarts, quickly press the F8 key. This will initiate the safe mode. Insert CD in your notebook’s optical drive. It may read CDs. I thought my DVD drive was dead, until I switched to safe mode. Now my dead CD drive can read CDs but not DVDs.
Update your optical drive’s drivers. Press Start and type Device Manager in the search box. Click on it and choose Disk Drives. Right-click on the ATA drive icon. Click on upgrade driver and then click Search automatically. If there’s an upgrade available, it will be done automatically.
A dirty lens might be one of the causes behind failure to read/write data to a CD. A can of compressed air might prove quite handy in removing dust from the optical lens. You can also use a CD drive cleaning disk to remove dust, lint and static from the optical lens.
If any of the above tips do not fix your laptop CD drive, consider replacing it with a new one. I would recommend external CD drives. They are quite affordable and last longer than internal optical drives.
Screenshots, provided by author
This article is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge. Content is for informational or entertainment purposes only and does not substitute for personal counsel or professional advice in business, financial, legal, or technical matters.
Anyone who has ever been played games on a computer may encounter a strange phenomena. The desktop or laptop computer will randomly crash or reboot for no apparent reason. This happens most often when playing games that really stretch your computer's abilities. Examples of these would be Quake, Doom and other 3-D games that require huge processing power.
While there may also be other reasons, the root cause is often due to excessive heat. If this is the case, as it often is, you may be able to resolve your computer problems by yourself. So before you run off to get someone to help fix your computer, make sure that you've tried to solve the problem by yourself. You may not need someone else and in the process save yourself the expense of having to pay someone for their services.
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How to recognize the problem of a computer overheating?
Here are the symptoms that you should be looking for:
Your computer boots up without any problems and you can login. Everything seem to work perfectly okay.
There are no problems when doing regular computer work such as word processing, Internet browsing, etc.
When you want to play a certain game, it starts up okay and you can play for a while without any issues.
Suddenly, often in the middle of the game, the computer crashes and reboots without any prior warning.
If you experience this behavior or something similar, you may be having problems with overheating.
What causes excessive heat in a computer?
There are many reasons why a computer will overheat. In fact, as long as your computer is old enough, it's actually inevitable. Here are some of the causes:
Most computers rely on fans to cool off. These fans have a limited lifespan and will eventually stop working. They will then need to be replaced.
Local changes in temperature and humidity can increase the heat index within your computer. Your geographic location and time of the year (winter, summer) play a big role.
Insufficient or blocked airflow to and from your computer means the computer cannot properly get rid of the heat.
Dust buildup within the computer and on various components (CPU, graphics card) can trap heat and reduce its ability to cool off using heatsinks.
Some or all of these factors can combine to create a situation where heat gradually builds up until the computer can no longer tolerate the stress of the heat.
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Why does overheating cause a computer to crash?
Most electronics, which includes computers, can only operate safely within certain parameters. These parameters include the temperature of the local environment. As long as the computer stays within those parameters and does not exceed them for too long, the computer should function as designed.
But if it gets too hot or too cold, electronics cannot operate as intended and will fail at some point. It may take some time, but it's inevitable beyond a certain point. Crashing and rebooting are symptoms that something is wrong and you need to fix things as soon as possible. If you don't, permanent damage will be done, which will be more expensive to repair. In the worst case, your computer is no longer operable and you'll need to spend money on a new computer.
Why does my computer crash only when playing certain games or on certain dates?
The reason why it happens with games in general, and 3-D games in particular, is because they tend to stretch the resources of a computer much more than other tasks such as word processing or Internet browsing. Your computer will only run at a fraction of its actual capacity most of the time. But with 3-D games, your computer, and its central processing unit (CPU) in particular, may be running at close to 100 percent.
When your computer is running at maximum capacity, it generates a lot more heat than is usually the case. The possibility arises that the computer can no longer cope with the stress and crashes. Once you stop playing games, the computer resorts back to normal. The reason why is because the computer doesn't have to work as hard and there is not so much heat generated. This it can tolerate.
Note that it isn't just games that causes such computer crashes. Some software applications that are computationally intensive, such as Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, can also experience similar behavior with overheating. However, games are a lot more prevalent with people than these applications. That is why this phenomena is usually associated with games.
The reason why your computer may only crash on certain days is because of daily fluctuations in temperature and humidity. If, for example, it's hotter on Wednesday than on Tuesday, then your computer may crash even though it worked fine the day before. In the afternoon it's hotter than in the morning or evening and the likelihood of problems during those hours is greater.
The season also plays a role. The temperature is much lower during winter, which helps to keep the computer cool. But during the summer, things heat up a lot. Cooling may no longer be sufficient even when it's fine the rest of the year. If you live in a country close to the equator, you're also more likely to have problems.
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How to fix computer problems related to overheating?
The good news with computer problems related to overheating is that they can often be resolved by yourself. You won't have to spend any or too much money most of the time. Here is what you need to do:
First, open the computer case and increase the air flow. This is just a preliminary solution until a more permanent solution can be found.
Make sure that air can flow freely. Air exhausts of desktops, and laptops in particular, should be kept unblocked. The compact design of laptops where everything is squeezed together makes them especially vulnerable to problems.
If you have an airconditioned room, move your computer if it isn't already there. Lower the thermostat, if possible, to help cool your computer.
Check if your computer fans are still working. If they aren't spinning, you will have to replace them with new ones. You may consider bigger, more powerful fans or even liquid cooling to maximize efficient removal of heat.
Remove all the dust that has accumulated within your computer and on all its components. Compressed air works great if you have any.
Make a habit of regularly opening your computer to see if everything is still in working order. Get rid of dust regularly to prevent computer problems down the road.
If you follow this routine, you can drastically minimize the odds of your computer crashing due to heat issues. You will extend the lifespan of your computer and save yourself some money in the long run. Isn't that worth it?
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
