Using Windows 8.1, 64 bit. About 18 months old, haven't had any issues really.

Lately I'm having some unexplained freezes. It doesnt blue screen, and I Can still use the mouse, but nothing is responsive, and I cant even Ctrl Alt Del. I can just use the mouse, nothing else. Have to restart

Ive tried checking event logger, but dont really see anything obvious to me at least. I can post that if that would help.

Im updating drivers now, including video drivers, hopefully that will help, but wondering if other things I can look into? Fairly frustrtaing

Thanks

Is it overheating? Get a can of compressed air and clean out the vents (if it's a laptop). If it's a desktop get the case open and get the dust out of it.

What do the temperatures look like? Plenty of freeware you can download to have a look at them, such as Speccy, which is a pretty useful tool generally. Have it running somewhere visible and see if temps are spiking when it's unresponsive etc.

Also I would check everything else is up to date (Flash etc included, since that can get horrible with system resources) while you're at it. Secunia PSI (also free) is a good way to manage this.

When you say you can use the mouse but nothing is responsive, do you mean you can move the cursor but you can't click on anything (i.e. you don't just mean that the keyboard is unresponsive, which might otherwise suggest a keyboard issue...?)

I dont think it is overheating but I will check. I have speedfan, I will keep it somewhere visible now and check next time if/when it happens. I have 4 cores and its around 50c now when reasonably idle/not doing much, which from googling is totally fine. My fan actually does make an awful lot of noise, but I did use some compressed air not that long ago. and it doesnt freeze when playing computer games etc when I would think overheating would be more likely?

Secunia good idea. Havent used that for a while. Downloaded it.

I mean that when it happens, I can move the mouse, I can even type, but I cant really interact with the windwos, if that makes sense. I cant X out fo a window. I can change tabs, but I cant close a tab (in chrome). I can copy text, but I cant paste it. Etc. If that makes sense. Its like I can interact superficially but not do anything. And Alt F4, Ctrl Alt Del, even right click on Taskbar Open Task manager, none of them work

Thanks for reply.

People suggest checking device drivers because problems like this are usually hardware (or hardware interface) related.

Not knowing anything about your hardware configuration (laptop/desktop, any cables connecting hardware, etc), it's hard to be specific in an answer.

This covers the issue:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2681286

My friend had the same problem before. He can't even navigate through Windows Explorer. He just re-formatted his unit and then reinstalled the OS. The unit came back to its normal function after that.

I agree with this. @Praetor have you updated some drivers recently? This might be the problem.

I got a tech guy to take alook at it, and he found from the Systems Logs that it was the usb drivers connected to my "fingerprint scanner" (which I dont even have on this computer, but were installed from when it was shipped for some reason) that were causing the error at the crashing times. so thats been deleted. hasnt happened in a few days. we'll see

No i had not updated any major drivers that I can remember in advance of this starting, but I'm not sure. Its been happening for a few weeks (once every 2 weeks?) before I reached out for help

Okay, it's good to know that the problem isn't happening again. You could still try to check if the settings is in recommended set-up. Some updates are downloading in background without you knowing it. In this way, you are assured that you only download updates prior to what's needed.