Laptop locks up frequently

My father has a new Toshiba laptop, and it's been running fine for a few months now. Just recently his computer has been locking up frequently. I've just come home on leave, and haven't been here for most of the problems, but I'm doing everything I can to try and fix it.

He wasn't defragging his comp (he thought he was), so that was my first step. After that I've tryed searching for reasons his computer would lock up. I don't know if it's Vista that is the problem, or if it's a common problem with Toshiba.

I think that it might be a problem with his ram (he has 2gigs). It seems that it only locks up if he is online using Internet Explorer, but the game he plays (he only plays GUN) got sluggish over time (I think that was because he hasn't been defragging).

Any adivce about how I might fix this problem.

Cody

P.S. He has a virus that pops up from time to time called fauxvirus/carny_ride.exe, but Norton seems to get rid of it everytime it pops up. I don't know for sure, but I have a feeling that the virus isn't the real problem (looks sideways at Vista).

dear mav,
i wish to know if the locking your talking about is actually shunting down or standby. if it standby then you need to increase the time for screen server

well you just have to change the ram or remove one of them and see what happens if the same occurs then change the hard drive with a brand new one and install os and that fixes it. I don't think its the graphic problem because the game works and it's not overheating it. because it also locks when processor or graphic overheats.

Here's something to try. . . ugh. . . it's a long shot and kinda techical but try re-initializing the TCP/IP stack. Basically, to do that, you open a command prompt and do the following:

Otherwise, you can completely uninstall and re-install TCP/IP protocols