I'm calling on the group mind to see if anyone has any idea what's going on with my home computer. For the last month or two, I've been having a problem with it locking up for 10-30 seconds at a time. The only pattern I see is that it happens when I start a new task that uses a lot of resources. Playing a video file or opening IE are big ones, but other programs do it, too. The whole system freezes for 10-30 seconds and then it comes back and everything is fine. It's more a nuisance than anything, but it's really getting annoying, so I thought I'd ask here.

Nothing changed on my system hardware-wise immediately before this problem started. I did add some new memory, but that was months earlier. I do wonder if it is that, though, and just was a delayed effect? I know PC100 and PC133 is _supposed_ to co-exist peacefully, but...?

Software-wise, I install all sorts of junk all the time, so it's hard to pinpoint if anything there is causing it. I did run a virus scan and came up clean.

I know that's not a lot to go on, but I'm hoping someone will recognize the symptoms and be able to give me a clue. :)

System specs:
P3-600 (not overclocked)
128 PC100
128 PC133
IBM Deskstars 20GB & 75GB
Windows 98SE

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Michelle