random freezing problems

[rh71]

Just this late evening, I've been having freezing problems with this machine. I'd be doing whatever (Word, IE, etc.) and it would just freeze. No mouse movement, no numlock toggling, nothing. I notice the DVD-ROM and CDRW lights would go on randomly, sometimes both at the same time, sometimes alternating (at varying times each). After about a minute, things return to normal.

I put a CDR in the DVD-ROM and it played fine. They both eject fine also (when not frozen).

Problem remains after a hard reboot (whereby it didn't even detect the CDROMS during POST, but Windows finds them).

What could be the problem? It's not a heat issue... CPU is at a cool 123F. WINXP Pro.

[Reknup]

Sounds like a virus or bad sectors on your harddrive

Boot your computer in safe mode

Then run scandisk with fix errors automatically

[Reknup]

O and also run a virus scan if you have one

[rh71]

Yup been running virus scan since the reboot...

Just to add as info:

Right now the light for my CDRW is on and there's not even a disc in there. I double-checked my IDE connections at all ends.

[meese]

Is there something running in the background that hogs all of your resources (maybe antivirus program that decides to scan all of the sudden)? See if you can press Ctrl-Alt-Del when this happens. Select Task Manager. Click on the Performance tab. This shows how much memory is being used and the CPU Usage. Your CPU usage should be close to if not 0%. If there is CPU usage then select the Processes tab. Usually the System Idle Process is like 99% and all other processes are 0%. If a process is running the system idle process will be lower and you should be able to identify the process that is running.