My friend built me a computer this summer - he's great at it, but this is the first one that has had extensive problems. It ran fine for two weeks. The main thing is this . . . Windows XP will freeze up when I play anything from Jedi Outcast to Solitaire to just booting up the computer. It might just lock up while sitting there doing nothing. It will lock up many times after several reboots, or it will go a few hours without locking up. There is no method or "predictableness" to the lockups. Also, I brought up Task Manager once, and when it locked up, the System Idle CPU percentage went from 98% to 0 % and system CPU indicator went to 100% - it sucks away all 1.7 GHz of my CPU for the "system." I've switched out PCI cards for different slots, I had the motherboard tested (ASUS), I've tried all sorts of VCore and other system settings, all to no avail. WHat the heck is wrong with my frickin' computer?

Sounds like it could be a couple of things: 1. Failing memory. 2. Overheating. Try different memory sticks and see if it stops. Make sure the CPU fan is running. Check for lots of dust buildup anywhere in the system but especially on the CPU and fans. Good Luck, Ted.

I don't think you have enough RAM to keep up with your processor. The processor's L2 cache has a 4GB address range according to Intel.