XP Freezing

I have a computer that freezes at seemingly random times. The only common event in these events is that the mouse has clicked on something that has a pull down menu.

This can occur in an application such as Excel or AutoCAD. It has also happened after clicking on the start button. The really odd thing is that it doesn't have to be the first time either of these actions has been attempted in the session.

The PC has also locked up when trying to change the video display properties.

When this happens, the mouse is unmoveable and the keyboard is unresponsive. The only thing left is to power off.

We have tried a system restore, run scan disk,ran hi-jack this,ran Spybot S&D, ran a windows "upgrade" and even installed a dual boot XP. The new version of XP locked up just as quickly as the old version.

Short of formatting,I am at a loss. Any suggestions?

 

Hallo lingrlonger

- I'm new here and not very experienced as a user. But I recently had the same problem and in spite of following every advice and tutorial I could find in forums and other places on the internet, nothing worked.

I recognise the problems with frozen keys, mouse and dropdown menu. Exactly. It happened several times a day.

By luck I found a solution that worked for me. My 3 year old Google toolbar was the hindering - it was several versions too old. I never updated it. So if you have toolbars: update all of them - some of them were made for IE6 or even older IEs/browsers.

I went to Googles download page and chose US English as language settings. It is the only way you can get to download the Beta version of their newest. It is not available in other languages. It is a fine piece of work, Google have there. FireFox version available as well.

Since then I have only had one freeze a month - it is (as good as) gone. I now blame IE7 for that rare freeze - not Google's toolbar.

It is said that Google have automatic updates of ones toolbar. That is not the case. Google never updated mine. Same for Yahoo.

But then: they don't update outdated versions - do they?

:-D))

PS: I see now that the FireFox download is gone for the new Beta version. It used to be there on Google's home-page. However - the IE version is doing fine...