I have just built myself a new system comprising of: New Components: (i think one of these is the problem) Motherboard - ASRock K7VT4A+ CPU - Sempron 2200 (1.5GHz) RAM - 512Mb DDR400 VGA - MSI GeforceFX5900XT-VTD128 Old Components: (all working fine) Case & floppy drive NEC DVD-RW Dive DVD ROM Drive 160Gb Western Digital WD1600JB 80Gb Western Digital WD800BB My problem is that while in Windows it freezes, then unfreezes, freezes, then unfreezes randomly and then after about 2 hours completely hangs, can't do a thing apart from press the reset button. Windows and drivers are up to date, but i don't think it started happening until i installed Service Pack 2 so i did a restore and it still happens. I looked at what the CPU was doing in taskmanager and random processes (mainly system ones) are competing for CPU time, I mean they are taking large chunks at the same time. I have never seen this before, even taskmgr.exe takes up 99% of CPU time on occasion. It's driving me crazy as i can't get anything done without having to wait a few minutes when it freezes. What do you think it might be, any suggesgions would be helpful? If you need any more info then i will try to provide it. thanks :-)

Two things come to mind. First, without searching the specs on that MBoard, does it support sempron chips? Your problem sounds like your system is bogged down with adware/spyware. Are you using an add in firewall?

Yes it does support them, says on the box "Sempron Ready" :-) It's also a clean install of Windows and i am very security concious. I have the PC-Cillin Internet Security 2004, that has Antivirus, firewall, Pop-up blocker, adware/spyware blocker/remover (way better than norton IMHO, which i used to use) Runnig programs work fine like playing music movies and games, even under a heavy load, its just the system processes that it freezes under, e.g. svchost.exe, lsass.exe, explorer.exe and system. Oddly enough they don't take up that much memory though.

I'd first uninstall video card drivers/ software, reboot and let it run on the basic xp drivers. If your system straightens out then it was probably just a video driver issue. Also make sure you put your heatsink on correctly, check any temp programs when running. My last suggestion would be a ram compatibility issue. Get yourself a known good stick to try in that computer. Or a ram testing program like memtest. Unless your going to try overclocking I wouldn't see the need for ddr400. If i'm not mistaken that cpu is 266fsb thus only requiring pc2100 ddr. Check bios settings or get some kind of program to check your fsb, multiplier, cpu voltage, etc. cpuz is a decent small one and everest good large version. Or it could be something driver related. Try running in safe mode to see if it runs better. ASUS A7V8X AMD XP 2700+ 2.17ghz 768mb ddr 2700 128mb FX 5200 8x AGP WD 80gb SE 8mb cache NEC 16x DVD R/RW Dual layer Dual format.

Might want to think about upgrading that power supply. If the 12volt rail amps are weak might be robbing the PSU of needed power. I may be crazy, but I'm not stupid...

I've resolved 2 problems relating to pc-cillian crashed XP SP2. Repost if you have any query http://www.experts-exchange.com/Operating_Systems/Q_21221379.html Hope it can help you