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 Do you want to signoff PCSOFT or just change to Digest mode - visit our web site: http://freepctech.com/pcsoft.shtml