"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 Visit our website regularly for FAQs, articles, how-to's, tech tips and much more http://freepctech.com