My wife's HP desktop runs with XP Home. Every now and then, the desktop freezes. Completely. She has to unplug the computer, then it boots and runs ok. The freezeup mostly happens when the desktop has been sitting idle for quite a while, but sometimes it occurs
after only a few minutes of idle time. She uses Norton for virus protection.

What do you suggest that we try?

cyrusgramps

Welcome to Daniweb! You probably have some kind of infection. I suggest you download and run MalWareBytes from here:

http://www.download.com/Malwarebytes...-10804572.html

You can then go to our forum Virus, Spyware and other Nasties and read the sticky posts for help in getting rid of most bugs, if MalWareBytes does not fix the issue. There are some gurus over there that can help if you can't get it done...

should alwas include the use instruction when posting the link for malwarebytes .
* Double-click mbam-setup.exe and follow the prompts to install the program.
* At the end, be sure to checkmark the Update Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and Launch Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, then click Finish.
* If an update is found, it will download and install the latest version.
* Once the program has loaded, select Perform full scan, then click Scan.
* When the scan is complete, click OK, then Show Results to view the results.
* Be sure that everything is checked, and click Remove Selected.
* When completed, a log will open in Notepad.
post the log back here

I downloaded malwarebytes, updated it, and ran a full scan. Zero: No malware found.
So far, I've found no clues in the Viruses. . .forum, either. My wife does have a lot of junkware that came with the computer. I removed some of that sooon after she got the computer, about a year ago, but I should probably do a more complete job now.
cyrusgramps

i suggest a cleaner tool to clean up temp file .check all and clean with this tool ,doesn't install just run from the desktop.
http://www.atribune.org/ccount/click.php?id=1