Intermittent PC Freezes

[sCythE_roXx]

Hello Everyone,

Since the day I bought my computer it randomly freezes for a few seconds. In those few seconds there is very low response, the input, screen and sound all get jittery. It gets fine after those 15-20 seconds, and then may or may not freeze again after a minute.
Some applications are able to always make it freeze every single time they run:
1 Flash Videos (flv files)
2 Age of Empires 2
3 Long hours of play of Warcraft 3
4 Copying of data files between drives (even sata to sata - same drive)

While for other applications it rarely freezes. Sometimes there are chain of freezes. I have tried both Vista 32 Bit SP1 and Vista 64 Bit SP1, the issue persists which means this is not software issue.

I have tried looking everywhere on Internet but could not find the right solution.

The configuration of my pc looks like:
Processor: AMD AM 6400+ dual core
Motherboard: ASUS M2N-MX SE
RAM: 2 x 2 GB 800 FSB DDR2 (Total 4 GB)
HDD: 250 GB SATA 7200 RPM and secondary 400 GB PATA (Both Seagate)
Graphics Card: 8500 GT nVidia 512 MB
Monitor: 22" widescreen viewsonic
Power Supply: 500 w SMPS
Cabinet has 2 extra fans on side

Can you point to the likely cause. I suspect that the motherboard I am using is kind of low level for the processor I am using. There must be some compatibility problem in this hardware list that is causing this. Maybe graphic card too.

I had tried ProcMon, FileMon etc found out that during those freezes CPU is clocking at 100% and svchost.exe has some file handles opened. Following that I went ahead and disables all the services I could so that it's not some service creating the issue. But as soon as the "Age of Empires" or Flash Video runs it starts freezing again.

What should I do?
If you need some more information for troubleshooting this, let me know.

Thanks and Regards
Ravi

[Dragonf1re]

Hi Ravi

You state that the PC is new, does this include the RAM? It might be an incompatibilty with the RAM or a faulty module.

The SVCHOST thing sometimes point to spyware, try running the usual spybot, malwarebytes etc to see if any nasties have arrived on the PC. You say it has happened since day 1 which seems quite strange, I would troubleshoot the ram.
Hope this helps in some way

[sparkax]

Maybe the Power Supply is not enough.
Although 500W is usually OK the additional fans may be pushing the PSU to its limit.
However,it is just a thought ....

[AlejoMantilla]

thats very similar to the problem i ever had since i bought mine, but it shows himself aprox after a month or two of normal work. thats the reason i thought the problem was spyware-virus-etc related, took it as a symptom of a worm problem, BUT, i had lately very different infestations, and this problem continued to appear in everyone of them. finaly, in this last formating, and without connecting it yet to internet, the intermitent freezing came suddenly, just as always do. the computer and everything freezes for half a second, just to continue normally for about 5 to 10 seconds, and then back to the same freezing. when it happens, the sound jitters, and the process task bar shows an uprising of 20 to 30% of activity, and then goes down to zero.
after hijackthis analysis, the results to suspicious proceses where ZERO, the rootkitbusters said the same, antivirus and everything. so i ran ubuntu on startup and surprise: nothing. RAM ok, HD ok, ubuntu ran nicely. also, as an strange thing i realized today, this problems doesnt show when i run windows on "no error mode" (dont know how to translate from spanish sorry), but it does when i run no error mode with internet conection... im starting to think my wireless card has something to do with all of this... it always had problems... but in the end, i dont understand whats happening. and just for the end =( first time i play a game, fallout 3, and it starts crashing with the blue screen of death, due to a problem with the world famous kmixer.sys...

my pc is Core 2 Duo 2.2 ghz, MBOARD PCchips P17G, Chipset Intel Lakeport Gi945GC, BIOS AMI, videocard nVidia 7200 GS, audio Intel 82801GB ICH7, HD SATA II 7200rpm 160GB. 2 x 1 gb RAM . win XP service pack 3 with yersterdays new "security" updates

it is not a solution, sorry, but is the first thread i find on this problem of constant freezing.

muchas gracias
alejo