periodic XP lockup - what's the deal?

ok, so I recently decided to move from Windows 2000 to Win XP. I wiped everything, reformatted, and did a clean install.

I had no problems under 2000, but now I get 3-4 lockups a day, and they always have the same characteristics: the computer grinds to a near-halt, and some graphical artifacts appear on the screen (i.e. lines appear, some text becomes indecipherable). although I can still move my mouse (sluggishly) and the hard drive light is blinking, nothing much happens. I tried ctrl-alt-del and shutting down apps, but even if I get the task manager to appear, it has no text on it, and if I try to shut anything down the task will never actually be carried out.

so essentially it’s not a hard lock-up, I don’t get the blue screen of death, but I have no choice but to shut down the computer since everything becomes 99% unresponsive.

I’m really at a loss - I got all the latest updates and service packs and updated my video driver, but I’m not sure what could be causing these lockups. I have a very minimal program set installed on my computer, and the lockups have been happening almost from the beginning.

any ideas?

Lots of possibilities, I’ll list one and let someone else come along and hopefully help you out more…

Did you load any applications that might not be WinXP compatible? If so, you need to go to the executable’s Properties (right-click, Properties) then go to the Compatibility tab and change the compatibility mode of the file to Win2000.

Maybe you have the virus that’s doing the rounds?
I’ve no good info on how to check for it, but have a look around.
It slowed my, admittedly old, machine almost to a halt too at times.
But the tech guys fixed it:)

Oh yeah, alternately you can use the Program Compatibility Wizard (Programs, Accessories, Program Compatibility Wizard)

I’ve never had the need to use it, so I can’t tell you much about it, but it may help you out.

When you installed it did you turn off any bios virus protection things & any other protections the bios might have so it can’t write a whole new boot sector? Otherwise its using your 2000 boot sector which might function to a point as 2000 & XP are pretty similar.

I only loaded very basic things, so I seriously doubt if there’s a compatibility issue - I haven’t been able to isolate any programs that are running whenever the immense slowdown happens. It started happening almost immediately after I installed a few weeks ago, so I don’t think the issue is virus related…

Could the amount of RAM you have be an issue?

I don’t think so - I have something like 340MB, but I’ve had an issue in the past that I thought may have been related to a RAM hardware problem (I have a stick of Crucial RAM coexisting with a stick that came with my Dell, but that in itself shouldn’t be an issue)

does anyone know of any free software that can determine whether your RAM is physically sound? I tried googling earlier but didn’t come up with anything…

Try download.com & search, they have stuff to test memory. Syssoft Sandra should do the trick.