Laptop freezing whenever I watch videos or have many tabs open

[frozensummer]

4 year old laptop.  It has worked very well until about a month ago when it began occasionally freezing when watching videos.  Also, if I have many tabs open (google chrome).  I bought a laptop cooling pad, but that doesn't seem to help.  The only thing that fixes it is waiting a few minutes.

 

Could it be a virus or malware, or is it just hardware?  Thanks

[David H. Lipman]

Does it feel "hot" ?

 

Have you used a can of compressed air and "blown out" dust from all cooling fins and air ports ?

 

"4 year old laptop"

What is it exactly ?   Make and model please.

[frozensummer]

Yes. Only on the bottom left near where the charger comes in.

 

Never used a can of air.  Is this something I should do yearly or something?

 

Sony Viao  VGN-NW350F

[David H. Lipman]

Using a can of compressed air is warranted whenever the unit get warmer than usual (after a while of using a notebook, one will get the "feeling" of what is normal or not) or when you see the intake slits where the fan takes in air looks "dusty".

[frozensummer]

Okay.  If that doesn't work, would there be any other things to try?  It can't be a virus/malware overheating or freezing my laptop right?  

[David H. Lipman]

The chances of malware causing it is lower than hardware but it's possible.

[frozensummer]

Alright.  I suppose I'll go get a can of compressed air and then report back on this thread?  Should I at least run malwarebytes?

[David H. Lipman]

Sure...  Go ahead.

[AdvancedSetup]

Please run the following scanner and post back the logs so that we can see what is running on the computer.

 

Download DDS from one of the locations below and save to your Desktop
dds.scr
dds.com


Temporarily disable any script blocker if your Anti-Virus/Anti-Malware has it.
How To Temporarily Disable Your Anti-virus, Firewall And Anti-malware Programs

Once downloaded you can disconnect from the Internet and disable your Ant-Virus temporarily if needed.
Then double click dds.scr or dds.com to run the tool.
Click the Run button if prompted with an Open File - Security Warning dialog box.
A black DOS console should open and run for a moment. 

• When done, DDS will open two (2) logs:
• DDS.txt
• Attach.txt

• Save both reports to your desktop
• Please include the following logs in your next reply as an attachment: DDS.txt and Attach.txt
  You can ignore the note about zipping the Attach.txt file

 

 

 

Next, Please download MiniToolBox save it to your desktop and run it.

Checkmark the following check-boxes:

•  
• Flush DNS
• Report IE Proxy Settings
• Reset IE Proxy Settings
• Report FF Proxy Settings
• Reset FF Proxy Settings
• List content of Hosts
• List IP configuration
• List Winsock Entries
• List last 10 Event Viewer log
• List Installed Programs
• List Devices
• List Users, Partitions and Memory size.
• List Minidump Files

Click Go and post the result (Result.txt). A copy of Result.txt will be saved in the same directory the tool is run.

Note: When using Reset FF Proxy Settings option Firefox should be closed.
 

 

Thanks