How to restart an hp laptop using the keyboard. What to do if your computer freezes? Your laptop is frozen

16.08.2023 Business

If your laptop freezes, then the cause of this problem may be a number of factors. Usually it is possible to fix the problem at home, but in order for the laptop to work without failures, you first need to find the cause of the breakdown.

Causes of the problem

Possible reasons for a laptop freezing can be roughly divided into two categories:

  • Hardware – problems with hardware, for example, overheating of components.
  • Software – errors in Windows operation, virus infection, etc.

If the device freezes when loading Windows, then it is most likely a hardware failure. If the system starts up and works for some time, then you need to pay attention to the state of the operating system, although there may be exceptions, which are described below.

Stuck when turning on and off

If the laptop freezes completely when turned on, then you should look for the reason primarily in the physical condition of the components. What problems lead to this situation:

  • Problems with RAM sticks - it is unlikely that you will be able to fix them yourself; you will need to disassemble the laptop.
  • Hard drive malfunctions - you can check the status of the drive using a bootable USB flash drive with the Victoria program.
  • Laptop contamination and components overheating.

If the laptop slows down at the system boot stage, but before that it turns on normally, then try starting Windows in safe mode. On Windows 7, you can select safe mode through the menu, which is called up by pressing the F8 key when you turn on the computer. If the system boots in safe mode, then you need to clean the startup list - one or more programs are slowing down Windows startup in normal mode.

On Windows 8 and Windows 10, the F8 key does not work, so you will have to wait until the system starts. To clear startup:


If Windows boots normally without startup programs, then simply do not allow applications to load with the system. Open the startup list again and mark only those programs that are vital - antivirus, applications for managing the video card. All other applications can be launched manually.

Another unpleasant situation is that the laptop works fine, but when it finishes working it starts to slow down terribly and doesn’t turn off for a long time. This is usually caused by a program or process that the system cannot terminate. When Windows 10 shuts down, a message box always appears telling you which apps are still running. You can return to the system, launch the task manager, and kill stubborn processes manually.

At the same time, check the system with an antivirus - there may be processes that prevent the computer from shutting down normally or are somehow harming the system.

Freezing during operation

If the laptop freezes a few minutes after turning it on, then try to detect some systematicity in the occurrence of problems. For example, Windows freezes after launching a game or program - this means that the problem is in the software that you are trying to launch. Reinstall it or uninstall it since the laptop cannot work with it.

Another reason could be incompatible drivers. If the problem occurs after connecting new hardware and installing software, then you should stop using this hardware or look for other drivers. If, for example, a mouse or other equipment freezes, and not the entire system, then you should also pay attention to the drivers and the physical state of the device.

There are no such obvious indicators - you will have to do a little independent diagnostics of the laptop. If you are wondering how to reboot your machine to begin diagnostics, the answer depends on whether the laptop is responsive to your requests. If you can open the Start menu and click Restart, then use this method to restart.

Is your laptop frozen and not responding at all? Then you will need knowledge on how to turn off a frozen device. Press and hold the power button until the screen goes dark. If this does not help, then unplug the laptop and remove the battery from it - this is a last resort.

After turning it on, first check your laptop using an antivirus. Use not only the installed anti-virus software, but also the free Dr.Web CureIT utility, downloaded from the developer’s official website. By the way, if you install a modern, powerful antivirus on an old laptop, it will also slow down mercilessly due to lack of resources.

A full hard drive can also cause the system to slow down or freeze. Open Computer and see how much space is left on the system partition. If the bar turns red, then you have dangerously full the disk. Try cleaning it of unnecessary files and programs. Also, remove temporary data:

Unfortunately, sometimes the cause of a laptop freezing is not only such a trifle as temporary files. The reasons may also be hardware in nature. If your laptop turns on and runs for a bit, then freezes and won't turn on again, and then after a while it turns on again and runs for a while, then you are definitely dealing with overheating components. To eliminate this drawback, you need to disassemble the laptop, clean it of dust and check the cooling system.

Problems may arise in the operation of the hard drive, motherboard, or RAM. You can independently check the temperature of components using programs like Speccy or run RAM and hard drive tests in MemTest and Victoria. But in such cases it is difficult to diagnose the problem on your own, so it is better to contact a service center to avoid even more serious problems.

Has your laptop started to freeze and your touchpad has suddenly stopped responding to your actions? Don't know how to reboot your device? Don't despair—you can complete this task using just your keyboard! Today we will tell you how to restart a laptop using the keyboard.

How to restart a laptop using the keyboard

Standard reboot

What would you do if your touchpad or mouse didn't betray you? Of course, we would reboot the frozen device through the start menu! So what's stopping you from doing the same using keys?

We will look at reboot options for Windows 7. The algorithm for other operating systems is similar.

This is a natural way of rebooting the device by giving the system a certain amount of time to complete all active tasks, eliminating the possibility of data loss or other problems.

Emergency menu

Another option for safely rebooting a laptop using the keyboard offers an emergency menu:

  • By pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete open the menu.
  • By using shooter or buttons Tab move the cursor to the lower right corner of the screen - to the small arrow next to the red sign OFF.
  • Press Enter and select the item from the drop-down menu that opens.


Reboot using hotkeys

IN Windows There are many hot combinations for accessing operating system functions. One of them - Alt+F4- used to complete the current task. It turns out that you can restart your laptop using the keyboard by pressing the hot keys:


How to reboot a laptop using the command line

If for some reason the first 3 methods do not help, then you can try rebooting the devices using the command line. For this:

  • Call the command line with Win+R.
  • Enter the command shutdown/r.
  • Use arrows to highlight the item OK and press Enter.

Reboot command

Options for rebooting a Windows 8 laptop: video

Power off button

Restarting your laptop using the power button is the last thing you should try. Forced shutdown may cause data loss or cause the device to malfunction.

Use this option only when the laptop does not respond to pressing the keyboard buttons.

To reboot the system, just hold down the power button for 5-10 seconds. The system will automatically complete all active tasks and shut down.

If, when turning on, when shutting down, when installing updates, or when turning off, your laptop freezes tightly and does not turn off, it means that you need to help it turn off or wait until everything returns to normal.

Usually the laptop freezes for a minute or two and this should serve as a clue to you that something is wrong with it.

Most often, laptops freeze due to a lack of RAM and the system being infected with viruses, although there are also simple software conflicts.

If the problem is a virus, then scan it with a free healing utility. As for the second factor (RAM), it can be increased or.

What to do if the laptop freezes when turned on

If the laptop constantly freezes when turned on, and even tightly, then this is a serious malfunction of the operating system (program conflict, inappropriate drivers) or hardware components (video card, processor, hard drive).


In this case, it is advisable to try running it in and see how it behaves.

If there are no freezes, then remove all recent installations (programs, updates, drivers) or (if there is a restore point), to the place when the performance was normal.

What to do if the laptop freezes at shutdown (when turning off)

If the laptop freezes when finishing work, it means that some process is preventing it from shutting down.

It could be a program or a virus - therefore, you need to find and remove it.

The easiest way to do this is by using .

You can also try - it will immediately determine whether this or that element is a virus.

What to do if the laptop freezes when installing updates after shutting down

If you installed updates and the laptop froze after turning it off, roll them back and don’t install them again.

Often it is possible to perform a system rollback only in safe mode, since the laptop in its normal state does not start.

When installing updates, Windows always creates a restore point (seven, in ten this function is disabled by default).

so there shouldn’t be any problems with this - forcefully turn it off and roll back.


The easiest way to forcefully turn off a laptop is to press the power button and hold it for a few seconds.

True, the laptop may freeze in such a way that this option will not work. Then remove the battery and disconnect the power.

Then, when you turn it on, the system will give you a choice of several ways to start Windows. At first you can choose normal.

If it doesn’t start, then choose one with automatic startup fix. Good luck.

Frequent computer freezes are a rather unpleasant problem that can sometimes drive even a calm person crazy. Typically, a situation where a laptop does not respond to commands is resolved by rebooting the system. But what to do if freezes occur constantly and interfere with normal work?

Causes of freezes

In order to choose the right method for troubleshooting, you first need to establish the causes of the freeze.

Conventionally, freezes can be divided into several types:

  • at startup before the operating system greets;
  • immediately after the desktop appears;
  • while working.

In the first case, the laptop displays the manufacturer's logo on the screen (or there is no image at all), the OS does not start, there is no response to key presses, and sometimes a reboot occurs. The reason for this may be:

  • corruption of system files;
  • incorrect BIOS settings;
  • motherboard failure.

Freezes that occur immediately after booting the system, in which the laptop does not respond to the mouse and keyboard, are usually associated with the following reasons:

  • CPU overheating;
  • disruption of the correct operation of the hard drive;
  • damage to one or more motherboard capacitors;
  • damage to the OS by viruses and Trojans;
  • unreasonable use of programs (installation of unnecessary, similar or unstable software that clogs startup and overloads the system).

Unexpected freezes while working on a computer are in most cases caused by:

  • hardware overheating;
  • malfunction of one of the programs.

The laptop is frozen and does not respond - what to do?

It should be said right away that if the motherboard fails, then it should be replaced or repaired by a professional. It is also recommended to use the services of a specialist when setting up the BIOS and troubleshooting problems with the hard drive or processor cooling system. In other cases, you can fix the freeze yourself.

Remove unnecessary and problematic software

Pay attention to the amount of software that is in startup. The more applications that run automatically, the higher the likelihood of your computer becoming unstable. Get rid of all useless programs.

If the laptop does not respond to anything after installing certain utilities, boot the computer in safe mode and uninstall them.

Do not use several similar programs at the same time. Often, work failure occurs if you use two antiviruses or several optimizers and system accelerators.

Get rid of viruses

Scan your laptop using one of the reputable antivirus utilities. This will significantly increase the speed of the OS and prevent freezes.

Don't overheat your laptop

Make sure that the ventilation openings of the computer are not blocked during operation. If additional cooling is required, use special

Restarting your laptop may be necessary if it freezes while drivers or updates are being installed, and in many other cases. It may happen that at this moment it will not be possible to use the mouse or touchpad. It is for such cases that the ability to restart the device using the keyboard is ideal.

Standard reboot methods

In order to restart a laptop using only the keyboard, you need to know the necessary combinations and techniques. How to restart a laptop using the keyboard:

  • using Ctrl+Alt+Del;
  • using the command line.
  • These are the most commonly used methods, which are enough for the average user to restart a laptop in almost any situation. The choice of each of them depends on the complexity of the situation. For example, if the computer is frozen, then it is easier to restart it with the combination Ctrl+Alt+Delete, and if an update has occurred, the operation can be performed in normal mode - through “Start”.

    Using the Start Menu

    It is optimal to use this type of reboot if when you just need to update drivers or install updates, but there is no way to use the mouse. On Windows 10, without using a mouse, this can be done by following the algorithm:

    1. Press the "Start" key.
    2. Press Tab once.
    3. Press the down arrow to highlight the shutdown icon and click on it.
    4. In the window that pops up, select reboot, shutdown or sleep.

    This option is not suitable if the computer freezes. But it works in all versions of the Windows operating system.

    Using the combination Ctrl+Alt+Delete

    This command opens a separate window in which, in addition to shutting down and rebooting, you can block the user, change the profile and open the task manager. This option is best suitable for freezing, because with its help you can try to solve the problem without rebooting.

    The procedure is the same as in the case of “Start”. Press the key combination Ctrl+Alt+Del. In the window that opens, use Tab to go to the line we need, select the shutdown icon on it, and in the window that opens, click on the operation we need - shutdown, reboot or sleep.

    Using Alt+F4

    This combination answers for disabling an active program, and when it’s not there, it opens a window through which you can restart the computer. In order for this window to open, you can simply press Alt+F4 several times. After this, a window will open in which, using the left or right arrows, you can select one of the commands: change user, block, reboot, turn off or go to sleep.

    Call the command line

    Using the command line requires knowledge of commands. You just need to know the special command “shutdown /r”, as well as the key combination that launches the command line - Win + R.

    Procedure for rebooting:

    1. Using the Win+R key combination, open the command line.
    2. Enter the command into it: “shutdown /r”.
    3. Wait for the computer to turn off.

    Immediately after entering the command, a window will appear warning that the computer will turn off in ten seconds. In this window you can cancel the shutdown.

    Emergency methods

    Situation, when the computer does not respond to any commands, can happen to anyone. However, you will not be able to restart a frozen laptop using the above methods. We will have to use emergency measures. If the laptop restart button is present, then use it.

    Such buttons are rare, so instead, hold down the power button for a few seconds until the laptop turns off completely. Then turn on the laptop again. Another way is to disconnect the device from the power supply. To do this, unplug the power cord, remove the battery, and then put everything back.

    Using these methods may result in data loss and errors. Try not to use them. Most often, you can wait until the computer starts responding and turn it off using standard methods.

    All the above methods suitable for Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba laptops and so on. The main thing is that they have the Windows operating system installed. The presence of a reset button depends on the specific laptop model. Usually there is no option because laptop manufacturers do not want the user to reboot the laptop frequently and create errors.

    Regardless of the complexity of the problem associated with the inability to use the mouse and touchpad, there are many ways to restart the device. This is easy to do if you know the procedure or use the tips in this article.