My New Dell 5100 is Freezing up on me

[bigcity11111]

Hello. You guys helped me with a Maulware problem last year (and did an amazing job I might add) and thought I'd check back with a problem I'm having with a new and different computer.

I've only had this brand new dell for 8 months and already it's having problems. I've learned my lesson from my old computer NOT to download from unknown sources. So I'm not sure if my problem is hardware or software related, and if someone could stear me in the right direction (either with troubleshooting suggestions or other forums I should visit) that would be a great releif.

Basically, my computer locks up at the most random times--while using word, or explorer, or sometimes it won't wake up from sleeping (screen saver). It's pretty frequent too, probably once every use. Some people have suggested swaping our my memory card for a good one to see if that helps, others have suggesting defragmenting, others think it's a software issue.

What do you guys think I should do as a first step?

(Dell has basically left me high and dry. So disappointing, but I'm hopeful someone can stear me in the right direction as they did before in this site.)

[tashi]

Hi there.

When you contacted Dell was it via phone or at their support forums?
http://forums.us.dell.com/supportforums/

My own experience has been that the phone route is useless but the support forums are helpful.

You could post a Spybot-S&D log here so we can take a look for possible malware; but as you say, that may not be the problem.

• Open SpyBot, check for and get any updates available.
• Close all browsers, check for problems and fix everything found in red
• Then on the toolbar menu select mode and switch to advanced mode, on the left lower down select tools, and view report, ensure all the options are selected near the bottom except
  
• Uncheck[ ] do not report disabled or known legitimate Items.
• uncheck[ ] Include a list of services in report.
• Uncheck[ ] Include uninstall list in report.
  
• Now select (near the top) view report.
• Press export in the save in box choose a place such as your my documents folder, then in your next post near the bottom select the "browse" button; navigate to and attach or post that report.