"How old is the computer? How much RAM? What are you doing when the 
problem  occurs? Do you have anti-virus and spyware programs "


First, I'd like to say "thank you" to all the nice folks who answered my
questions. I really appreciate all your input. As of last night, I was
able to do a complete defrag and scan by following the directions of
going into MSCONFIG, Start-up tab, and disabling a whole scad of programs
that begin at start up. No wonder it took forever for this computer to
boot, having to load all those programs. I haven't re-enabled all of them
and the computer boots up much quicker.

A little history on this machine. It belongs to my 85 year old neighbor
(Mr. Miller) and I've been trying to keep it tuned up for him since he
bought it in 2000. Yes, it's at least 6 years old. It has at least 256K
memory, 20GB hard drive, OS is Windows ME. He uses is mainly for e-mail
and Internet connection. He's used Earthlink for years and prefers to
stay with that as he's used to it. Virus protection is Avast, Firewall
ZoneAlarm Personal Edition, and Ad-Aware. All these programs are up to
date. Did a virus scan last night, no viruses found. 

The unit loves to lock up while on-line and is way too slow. His browser
is IE. Would Firefox work with Earthlink? I reformatted the hard drive in
December using the Compaq restore disks that came with the computer. The
unit worked real well for about 4 days then began locking up again.

A year or so ago, we (my DH and I) replaced Mr. Miller's modem with a
U.S. Robotics 56K internal, since the original died.

Because of the age of this unit, could the hard drive, motherboard or
some other component be ready to kick up its heels and croak? 

Thank you so much for your responses. You've all been so helpful!

Sissy Reeve

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