Please help with crashing laptop

[Sikelist]

The wife uses it for work and it's been so frustrating for her. It's a Dell (forget which model) with a Miscrosoft OS (forget which one). It's 2 yrs old.

She doesn't do much on it – Some MS office stuff (word, excel, powerpoint) and browsing the interwebz but mainly uses it for her work software (which is not huge) – she's not a graphic designer or anything. And no video games or anything like that either. It even seemed like it was too much computer when we got it but I wanted to make sure it was good and all the Dell models came with oodles of memory anyway.

I haven't run the antivirus or malware so I'll do that tonight but let's assume that's all fine.

It specifically crashes when she is using the software for work (which is locally stored on her laptop – not cloud based). But the software was fine when first used, is it possible that the data that was put into it caused it to do this or that it degraded over time for some reason? I've been getting suggestions to reimage the thing to start from scratch but I don't see why that would help if it's the specific program that crashes the laptop.

Any suggestions on what to do? Replace the whole thing or just get a new OS or re-image? Will any of that help or do you think it's that specific software?

Thanks.

 

[jmacavali]

If it's the work software, could you possible get her work to look at it. When it 'crashes' what does it do? Blue screen/freeze/etc. Any error messages? Everything up-to-date (jave/flash/etc)?

 

[Sikelist]

If it's the work software, could you possible get her work to look at it. When it 'crashes' what does it do? Blue screen/freeze/etc. Any error messages? Everything up-to-date (jave/flash/etc)?

Thanks.

She's self employed so it's all on us. I ordered the machine for her and off she went. She's not one to update anything so I doubt anything is up to date.

She says that the computer just freezes. No blue screen.

I can look at updating anything like java and such. And, I can run the antivirus and download malware software and run that too but that's where my involvement may end. The software is a clinical application to keep notes and a patient calendar and such. So if I do anything to lose those notes, that'll kind of be not good – very not good. And it's confidential as well.

So I just don't know – if the updating and antivirus running doesn't do the trick, the question would be, is it worth it to bring it into a shop or should we just get a new laptop? Or maybe I should contacting the clinical software company and reinstalling their software?

 

[jmacavali]

Or maybe I should contacting the clinical software company and reinstalling their software? [/FONT]

After updating and scanning, this would be a good idea. They also may have released an update or something you can download. I don't think there's a reason just to buy a new laptop just because one piece of software is causing a crash (at least not without trying somethings first).

 

[setishock]

Try my toolbox first. Systems that just get used and used and used and never taken care of will come around to bite you in the booty sooner or later.
http://www.computerforums.org/forums/cyber-safety-computer-security/pc-cleanup-toolbox-219988.html