Some more thoughts:

1. Reseat the memory chips.

2. Could be memory chip gone bad.

3. Overheating can cause some odd display effects, or intermittent
freezes.  Check that all fans are running during operation (you'll have to
remove case), and that vents are clear.

 From what you now say, I doubt it's a swapfile (aka "Virtual Memory")
setting, unless you have purposely created a very odd setting, which seems
unlikely from your comments.

<<All that's there is Zone Alarm and Norton.>>

Norton what?  If you have their system protection utility running, turn it
off.  Norton's a-v is a big resource hog, though should be OK with that
amount of memory, as long as you're sure their aren't too many hidden apps
running in background. Check with Task Manager if need be, also check
Msconfig/Startup tab to ensure their's nothing unknown running at startup.

Regular registry restorations will overcome many such minor
glitches---provided you have a system of regular registry backups, of course.

Don Penlington



 From the Beach at Surfers Paradise in sunny Queensland.
Computer tutorials and other things at my website:
http://users.tpg.com.au/deepend/index1.html

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