For about a year now, my computer decides it just wants to freeze, usually while I'm writing emails in Outlook, sometimes while typing in word, and very often while I'm using microsoft visio. I used to have Windows 98, so I installed an all new OS and it still does it! The error from my event log reads "The server did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." This usually is the error when it freezes while in Outlook. When it freezes while using visio the event log says "The Real-Time windows target service failed to start due to the following error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error." Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Take a look here for possible answers.

get some more ram.

Awhile back I had random freezes all the time and it ended up being my onboard LAN. I noticed in my Event log I kept getting messages about "hardware failure detected on network adapter" or something and alot of things like "the DCOM server did not respond within the semaphore time period" or something to that nature. I just disabled my onboard LAN and added in a 3COM NIC and all is well since.