Owing to the fact that funds aren't there to run out and buy a bunch of new stuff, I'm just trying to understand the process here.
I'm running win 10 on a newish HP all in one that has a i5 chip and about 12 meg of memory. I use CenturyLink and they say they provide about 20 mps.
It's all been whirring away just fine until around 6 months ago. Without warning, after visiting about a dozen sites, the screen freezes. Inevitably, the only way to get out of this is to unplug it and start over. This HP takes 10 to 15 minutes to live again. It "seems" as if having more than one window open can cause it. Often it seems that this site often causes it.
I can't rule out some sort of hostile ware, or someone loading little trackers on their site, which I pick up. None of my friends recommend any Virus software, saying what Windows Defender is enough. I've tried Malwarebytes, but they seem nutty to me. And, they've farmed out their billing to someone that is profoundly inept.
I've got a new Dell Core i3, 7th Gen that I have not started up yet because I like the giant HP screen.
I wonder if there is some buffer that is filling up or ...
I feel your pain. My current (and at the moment, only) machine is a Win10 Asus. And I'm on my 5th bare-metal re-install of Windoze 10. That seems to be the norm with this iteration of Micro$oft's OS.
Fortunately, (for me) I have multiple external backup devices (drives, etc) so I lose nothing important. And I have made it easy, by obtaining a 16gig USB stick, on which I have a bootable Win10 image: Insert stick. Boot to the USB. Run the install, and there is a point where it asks me where to install, and that little interface lets me wipe out the C: drive in it's entire-- effectively destroying all the bloat, crap, errors, bad registry entries, etc, etc.
A bit harsh, but darn if my 10 year old laptop doesn't fly after I do that.
Too much? Yeah.
Okay: Avoid Kpersky like the plague it is-- we know that many computer viruses come from Russia. Who would willingly install a
Russian, allegedly anti-virus thing? Avoid that sucker.
MalWareBytes IS flakey-- the secret? Dig a bit into their website, and get the stand-alone, FREE, run-once software. And run it. And run it a second time. In fact, run it until it gets "nothing found" two times in a row. Pro Tip: Start the run, JUST as you are putting your machine away for the night, so you are not inconvenienced by it taking over all your CPU cycles... Note-- don't bother saving this thing, I always go download a fresh copy, anytime I feel the need to run it. Which isn't that often, see above.
Your mileage may vary, as even the free one will update itself every time you run it.
Anti-virus? Well, lots of good advice already, but I stick with Windoze Built-ins, as it creates about 100 times less overhead-- and I believe that Micro$oft does this deliberately. However...
Use Chrome browser. Why? Because each open tab runs in a *separate* memory space-- as if you were on a different virtual machine. That effectively prevents cross-tab contamination. But wait! Chrome out of the box isn't remotely good enough.
You need an Ad Blocker-- I use Adblock Plus. You can enable/disable selectively, so you can still support your favorite websites (like, say RF), but most of the time it blocks possible infections via unclean advertising.
And? You need ScriptSafe. You
really--really need ScriptSafe. This is because ALL virus infections you can get, via simple browsing? Come to your machine via a
script.
And with ScriptSafe? You can prevent scripts from running at all.
And I have to warn you? It's a pain-in-the-donkey to use-- because it exposes ALL the third and fourth and fifth party servers that every stinkn' website redirects to .. .and you gotta figure out the bare minimum to allow to get to your content without getting hacked. *sigh*
Yeah. Pain. But so worth it-- since I've been using some form of Script Control extension? (first, Firefox, and later Chrome) I have never had a single infection on my machine--ever.
And I've been on some very questionable sites, in search of answers to questions.
Notebook: If you elect to bare-metal re-install windows? One of the FEW things Micro$oft got right about WIn10? Is activation-- or more accurately, re-activation.
My current laptop? The one that's on it's 5th install of Win10? Has only ever been Officially Activated the one time-- when I purchased it, and registered my legal copy of Win8. (which I used for about an hour--to register, and immediately get the update to Win10). Every single re-install? Self-reactivated as soon as I hit the interwebs. The first re-install of Win10? I had anticipated Trouble-with-a-T, and dug deep into the registry to wrestle out the Official Win10 Activation Key String. I needn't have bothered. Win10, unlike previous versions, is directly tied to your machine in some arcane way, but it just works-- at least for laptops, it works. All you gotta worry about, with a re-in? Is to preserve your precious data-- photos, emails, that extended meme collection, your recipe files, your kid's attempt at the Great American Novel, and so on. Easy enough to simply copy onto a USB stick, or external hard drive.
Notebook: How To Get A Bootable Win10 USB Stick: easy. You use Windows Media Creation Tool. Download from Micro$oft. Choose "create media". Have a newish stick ready--it'll erase everything on it. (but sometimes that fails, so you instead create the ISO file somewhere on your machine--it's not that large, about 8gig for the 32/64-do-anything version (uncheck the "recommend for this machine" box, then choose 32/64 from the drop-down. Don't worry-- the installer is pretty smart.) If you download the ISO? you'll need to burn that to a DVD or use RUFUS (google it) media creator freeware (Linux, but runs on Windoze) to take the ISO file and slam it into that USB stick. I've done this also about 5 times-- I always download a fresh ISO image, because it contains all the pesky updates,
already incorporated into the download -- a boon that is literally priceless.