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the first one.... double click on the grey border, it should bring the usual task manager back

I'll try that, I must have accidentially done it somehow.

Not sure on the 2nd one.. could it be something like the virus checker updating? how long does it freeze for? does it freeze as soon as it goes online, or after a while??

Think the first place to start will be to look at your taskmanager (when you get it back lol) for any processes racking up cpu time you dont recognise.. then do the usual virus/spyware scan.

It doesn't happen straight away, mainly if its been running for a while, 1hr or some. It depends really. To be honest I haven't really a clue about PC's so unless its staring me in the face I haven't a clue

Under the CPU heading what do the numbers mean ? I know you have Usage amounts which make sense. I'm using AVG at the moment, does that have a Spyware scan ? If not whats good ?

the first one.... double click on the grey border, it should bring the usual task manager back

I'm in work at the moment and tried it on this PC and it works a treat

I'll try that, I must have accidentially done it somehow.

It doesn't happen straight away, mainly if its been running for a while, 1hr or some. It depends really. To be honest I haven't really a clue about PC's so unless its staring me in the face I haven't a clue

Under the CPU heading what do the numbers mean ? I know you have Usage amounts which make sense. I'm using AVG at the moment, does that have a Spyware scan ? If not whats good ?

Your pausing issue could be down to your pagefile (virtual memory) chugging along. How much memory do you have in your machine?

Your pausing issue could be down to your pagefile (virtual memory) chugging along. How much memory do you have in your machine?

I recently upgraded from 512 to 1 GB (using 2x 512MB cards). When I was upgrading it I fried my motherboard so had to get a new one .

Is there a way of checking ?

how upto date is your antivirus software

how upto date is your antivirus software

It looks up to date, I'm using AVG.

IMO I would rather have no antivirus than AVG, do a scan on your pc using Kaspersky's Web scanner and see what it finds.

Or another one to try is housecall on Trend Micro Enterprise Homepage (Global)

Trend Micro HouseCall - Start

AVG is pretty good - in innumerable scans I've only found two viruses over the last three years - and I've been using it for over 6 years now (+ you would not believe the number of programs I've downloaded and tried). Check out various Web Site ratings (+ the 'official' Virus Testing page - I forget the location) - it usually comes out pretty/ very well.

Spyware - AdAware is the one I use - but there are tons out there. But, yes, installa spyware scanner. Some sites use the 'ActiveX' 'entrypoint' to download small programs which then run on your PC. When I first read your thread I thought you'd encountered such an event.

To explain, normally I disable ActiveX - but for some sites you need it to view the content. So, I forgotten to disable it agin and then went to another site.

30 seconds later I had 'unwanted' program running.

It would not let me use the Task Manager (to kill off the unwanted process and then delete the surreptitiously installed files) - 'Administrative ... required', which I have as I'm logged in as Administrator.

The PC went into a never-ending reboot cycle. Luckily I'm a long-time user of Norton Ghost so was able to get my system back up and running in 10 minutes. Others / most will not be so lucky.

Since then I've installed a freeware program - Arovax Shield (do a Google) which claims to stop such events. Visit the site and have a looksee. The one downside to installing Arovax is the PC now takes 5 mins to shutdown (30 seconds before - and I have definitely narrowed it down to Arovax as being responsible).

Another program which claims to protect is Sandboxie - freeware, do a Google - they also explain the danger behind ActiveX.

BTW please steer clear of Norton and McAfee antivirus etc products. In my opinion :-

a/ They're expensive

b/ They're memory hoggers

c/ They're not all that good.

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Perhaps 2) is your hard drive powering down (as you aren't doing much just browsing the internet). Then the freeze is while it powers back up when you do something?

Try checking the power options in control panel.

I checked the power options,

The HDD is set to Never.

The problem has been occuring since New motherboard put in (& Memory).

I have also found it on the VRC Virtual RC Racing Game, it just seemed to hang at various points in it.

I ran a AG Spyware run there, 16 Tracking Cookies came up, I think I have deleted them. Would they cause it ?

I ran a AG Spyware run there, 16 Tracking Cookies came up, I think I have deleted them. Would they cause it ?

No they wont cause your problem.

Sometimes the problems you describe can be a pain to diagnose and have many causes. They could be driver related, related to a software update or somesuch.

I dunno if its becasue of this Kaspersky's Web scanner I'm running but I keep getting the attached everytime I open explorer.

I dunno if its becasue of this Kaspersky's Web scanner I'm running but I keep getting the attached everytime I open explorer.

I found that Video Active X Object got on the PC during the day when I was running the scan, hence the reason the above attached picture was appearing. I spent ages trying to delete it, eventually I got it sorted through AVG. I also got rid of another Active X along with some out Explorer Security I think...see how it goes, thanks all for the help.