System Freezes for ~2 minutes... then resumes

It sound like you have a similar issue to This thread.

Unfortunately the tasklist.exe app I suggested they use to figure out exactly what rundll32.exe is dealing with isn't on your OS version that I know of and the one from the download link probably won't run on it.

Did you get the monitoring utility from www.sysinternals.com and if so, does it offer any additional information?

 

Control Panel\Sounds

 

Unfortunately i've made zero progress on fixing this

I have gained one more piece of info which perhaps may (hopefully) give some of you experts some additional info to guide me....

Besides removing the NIC cable, i can also prevent the system from hanging by opening an office document as soon as the system boots.

START>>NEW OFFICE DOCUMENT>>WORD>>close

I am then UNable to replicate the freeze/hang problem as i have been able to above.

Does this mean anything or point in any further direction?

Thanks.