StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Computer boots fine, runs fine, does everything exactly as normal. After a while - sometimes a few minutes, sometimes hours - very suddenly, a program becomes unresponsive. Even though responsivity returns after a while, or even if the unresponsive program is shut down, the computer as a whole suffers fatal slowdown and can no longer do the simplest of tasks. However, even when taking minutes to launch Notepad, or many seconds to close the start menu, cpu usage remains steady at under 3%, RAM usage at ordinary idle levels, commit charge normal. Mouse remains fluid. According to Task Manager, everything is fine.

Shutting down the computer (with the big blue button, since getting the computer to shut down the ordinary way is impossible despite the fact that the computer remains nominally functional, i.e. not frozen) and popping the side reveals that the computer is barely warm. All fans are operating properly, and graphics card, motherboard, RAM chips, and everything else are all barely warmer than room temperature. Which makes sense, given that all I'm doing is working on an office document or surfing the web.

Problem persists despite uninstalling (and, later, despite reinstalling) the Java update 7 I got the day the problem started (Saturday) and despite loading a system restore point from a week ago. Antivirus and spyware checks come up clean.

Any idea what the hell is going on? Any ideas for diagnostics or repairs?

EDIT: I'm running Windows XP sp2, and the programs that have been running when problems started have been Firefox and OpenOffice Writer.

See if you can re-create the issue without firefox or openoffice running. If you can't, start up just one of those programs and see if you can find out which program is causing the problem. If it happens even without either program running, try running a hardware diagnostic tool on the computer. Most OEMs (HP, Dell, etc) include one on there computers. If you don't have one, I think Prime95 can test memory and cpu, but I'm not sure.

I suggest testing the memory modules of the computer. My parents had one 64MB chip on a 512MB memory module break and that caused all kinds of massive problems with program slowdowns, random freezing and other sorts of shit. Once I installed new memory on it, the machine ran like new. I've seen the same happen on a couple of other machines as well.

If the amount of memory available to Windows according to Start > Run > winver differs from what the computer should have, you have this problem, but even if it doesn't, checking the memory is a good idea.

Fixed it by uninstalling anything and everything Java related (as well as bittorrent and Freelancer, which I never use on this computer, in the same sweep). So far 9 hours continuous operation with no failure. Thanks for your help.