Intermittent Pauses, Windows XP and You!

Okay, periodically and randomly my computer will just freeze up for a second or up to 5-10 seconds, then release. My mouse will jump to wherever it would was supposed to go as I spin it around in a frustrated atempt to do something or anything. If I'm playing an MP3 it will repeat at the one note for the time it freezes then continue as if nothing has happened. It's not critical and it hasn't happened while I'm playing a game or anything, but it has eluded me so far and I want to know how to fix it! My specs are as follows:

P4 2.0 GHz
512 RAM
MSI 845GMAX M/B
GeForce 4 Ti 4600
SB Live

I have my system loading as little as humanly possible but I don't know what else to cut out. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

What driver versions are you using?

Is the sound card sharing and irq with something? If so, what?

What bios version are you running?

I have the very latest drivers for all my cards, etc. The sound card is sharing IRQ 18 with the USB Port. I'm pretty sure I don't need a BIOS update. I'll look at the BIOS and see if there's a setting that I can change.

What usb devices do you use?

My mouse. That's it for now. I have 3 such devices and the one I have my mouse plugged in at is the one on the back of the M/B. The other 2 I have not used the external plugs for. I disabled the USB port and my mouse wouldn't work (obviously). I tried to set the PCI Slot #3 IRW to 5 (which is open) but Windows won't recognize it as such. I can't change it in the Device Manager either.

I'm not entirely sure it's that conflict however. It happens most when I use Kazaa Lite but it will also happen some other times.

SB Live! has been the culprit in many a freeze up - as boring as it is, if you disable it as an experiment, does the freeze up stop?

Do you have the SB bloatware loaded as well?

Negative on the extra non-necessary Creative software. Just the drivers. Maybe I'll yank the SB Live and use the on-board sound. :( I've never had any other problem with any other SB Live like the one at work, but we will see. :)

We had the same problem, as well as some random reboots, when I turned over our old machine to our teen and he installed a SB Live. He drove us crazy with "what's wrong with this machine"!! We pulled everything and reinserted cards 1 by 1. SB seemes to have been the culprit. No problems since.

Hope this helps.

Sue

did you ever change your virtual memory settings for a game or some other program?

I have 512 MB RAM so I set the VM to 1024, but set it lower (350 or something) as that's what XP "recommended". There's been no change. I haven't gotten around to remving the sound card yet becasue I'm lazy and don't want to have to reach behind my computer and everything. I guess I'll have to eventually.

On a side note, it does seem as if it happens more often when I'm using Kazaa (lite). Maybe something in the way that it comandeers the network and HD or whatnot? We will have to wait and see...