Windows XP Randomly Pauses

[Renegade23216]

Ever since two weeks ago my Windows XP Pro has been randomly pausing when doing regular things such as opening menu's under start or programs, viewing control panel, right click on desktop etc. It only pauses about once ever 5 or 10 minutes but it can be annoying. The pausing lasts anywhere from 5-15 seconds. I do not get an hourglass, and my mouse moves freely. However, I cannot click on anything until the pausing is done.

It is a decently fast system (Athlon XP 1600+, 640MB DDR, 40GB 7200RPM)

I do not have anything running in the background except for a virus scanner.

I have tried scandisk, defrag, disck cleanup, deleating temp. files, and re-installing XP. The only thing I havn't done is formating (which would probably fix it... but I don't want to go that far).

Any ideas on what else I could try?

 

[WarCon]

I have a P4 system that this same thing is happening to. Someone said they put out a critical update that is causing this. I sure hope they put out the critical update that fixes this soon.........

 

[snidy1]

I had the same problem. then it went away, I can't say foresure, but I think it was after I updated my sound card drivers.

 

[HumbleFish]

Is Your CD-Rom changing songs?... That used to do it to me?... Also, do You have any stuff running in the background?

 

[Renegade23216]

CD-ROM Changing Sounds? No.

As far as things running in the background... my system tray only has one icon for a virus scanner, and I have very few if anything running in my msconfig startup list.

 

[HumbleFish]

You misunderstood, I didn't say sounds... Is Your CD-Rom in the process of changing songs/tracks?...

Maybe, You need to backtrack... You say it started about two weeks ago?... Did You load any new drivers, upgrade, or open a strange email?

 

[blueribb]

If you know the trouble started 2 weeks ago, you could try "system restore" to go back in time 2 weeks.

Start / Programs / Accessories / System Tools / System Restore