"Length" Processes Freeze W2K

[TMitchell]

Lately my W2K system freezes and requires rebooting (by depressing the
front panel on/off button for a few seconds) on occasion when trying to
run programs that require time to complete, such as antivirus scans or
spy/adware sweeper programs (even did it a few minute ago when trying to
use Add/Remove Programs).

I realize this could be caused by any number of things, but in general,
what are some of the things I should check/test first.

FYI, this only started happening the past few weeks, about the same time
my mouse started freezing in place sporadically. I have observed Task
Manager to see if any programs or processes are running during the mouse
freeze events, but have not seen anything peculiar going on there.

 

[Bob I]

My money is on the unit is overheating.

 

[DL]

Test your memory, memtest86
After that, the hd manu, checking utility

 

[TMitchell]

OMG! An overheating problem? I hope not. I just replaced the power
supply with a new one and made sure that al the fans were up to par.
What's the best way (remembering that I am not a techie) to test if it's
an overheating problem or not?

 

[TMitchell]

Some additional observations:

The system doesn't show the freeze-up symptoms when doing such lengthy
operations as a defrag (takes a few minutes for my 120 Gb disk), or a
full back-up session (takes 4.5 hours to complete), downloading large
files (can take over half-hour on my dial-up modem) or rendering
animations in my CGI program (can take several days of constant
operation at a time). So maybe its not an overheating problem, but a
system problem. Any ideas?