Windows XP Freezes
- by Jim Fell
Hello.  I'm running a machine with Windows XP Professional 64-bit.  Every so often, it will freeze for no apparent reason.  That is, everything stops responding, except the mouse.  I can move the mouse around, but I can't click on anything.  Keyboard input is also not accepted/received when this problem occurs.  The three-finger salute fails to bring up the Task Manager.  Even pressing the power button on my computer fails to shut it down.  The only way out of this that I have found is to hard-reboot the machine (i.e. pull power or hold power button in for 10 seconds).  This problem was occurring on the system when it had all its updates and after a fresh install when not everthing was quite yet updated.  I've run the Scandisk utility and the latest version Memtest86 that supports 64-bit architecture; neither found any errors.
The last time this happened was on a fresh install of Windows.  Only Nero Essentials, Avast antivirus (disabled), Firefox, and Spybot were installed.  I was not running Nero, Firefox, or Spybot at the time, and Avast was disabled, so I'm pretty certain this is a Windows issue.
Is anybody familiar with this problem or have any pointers?  Thanks.