XP freezes every 6 seconds

I just reformatted the drive and clean installed XP. Currently I do not have any anti-virus software. I am hoping to buy soon. But if I remove SP2, it works without any issue. It also works fine in safe mode.

Usually some pest crawls in so we get to find it or your install is not complete. That is, what about all the drivers Microsoft does not supply?

Bob

I installed all updated from Microsoft site (about 80 of them). I checked Dell site for the updates. There are some and all of them are related audio and video drivers. I will update those as well and post the behavior back. Thanks for you time. Much appreciated.

I also wanted to mention to nchawla, that you should never go without an anti-virus program...even if you can't afford one. There are many "free" programs out there that sufficently protect you computer. Same with anti-malware/spyware programs and firewalls. For free anti-virus, try either Avira AntiVir:

http://www.free-av.com/

or BitDefender:

http://www.bitdefender.com/bd/site/products.php?p_id=24

For anti-spyware/malware, try SuperAntispyware:

http://www.superantispyware.com/

and Ad-Aware:

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

And for a firewall, try either ZoneAlarm or one of these others:

http://www.spychecker.com/software/freeware_firewall.html

http://www.firewallguide.com/freeware.htm

By the way, I don't know if this will help, but I googled your problem and found this article:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/security/expert/atkin_04nov23.mspx

Let us know if that article helps or not.

Thank you very much DavidT37. I will folow the articles and visit Windows Update ebfore SP2 instead of post SP2 install. I will post the results as soon as I am done. Also thank you for pointing me to free s/w. This is quite helpful.

I tried installing using Windows Update program. It now freezes randomly instead of every 6 seconds. The freeze frequency now is anywhere from 20 - 40 seconds, freezes for about a seconds. So I am giving up on this one....

Here is what I did:

1. Updated BIOS
2. Formatted (fully) disk
3. Installed XP
4. Installed all updates using Windows Update. This installed SP1 and all patches.
5. Installed SP2 using Windows Update.

Any other lead onthiss one?? Appreciate your help.

I see no mention of motherboard and all the drivers that Microsoft doesn't supply. To repeat, these drivers are not found on Windows Update, Driver Update buttons but from the maker of the machine.

Bob

Nchawla, I'm glad that I was able to help with the free software. Also, I wanted to mention that if after following everyone else's suggestions and you still can't resolve the problem that you are having with SP2, it might just be that your computer is not compatible with SP2. I did a Yahoo search with the words "sp2 upgrade" and "not compatible" and found this old Cnet thread:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208-10149_102-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=123192&messageID=1397664

There's a whole lot of information in that thread, however, if you scroll down to the bottom of Post 3 and go up 5 sections, which are divided by:

***********************************************************************

you will see the section Submitted by: Jeremy D. of Sydney, Australia which says:

This is my answer to the question for this week:

There are benefits and risks involved in using Service Pack 2. It is true that you will gain many cute features such as upgraded icons and images for wireless and other related items as well as a numerous collection of security updates however there are also many downsides to the story. Many drivers and considerable amount of software is not compatible or will contain conflicts with Windows Service Pack 2 as Microsoft has made many changes to its operating system with this update. A good example is the well documented driver problem related to internal wireless cards such as the Intel Pro Wireless 2200bg. If you are using standard software and relatively standard hardware, you will definitely gain benefits from upgrading to Service Pack 2. However, be wary if you use non-standard hardware or older versions of software which are not compliant with Service Pack 2, as you may spend many a day trying to figure out what went wrong.

Hopefully Jeremy D.'s comments or other information in that thread will help you to determine if you can fix your problem with SP2 or whether you should move on.

P.S. By the way, just wanted to say that I didn't read that whole thread to find Jeremy D's comments, but I intially looked at the cached version of the thread from Yahoo's search where the search words that I used were color highlighted. lol

Thanks again DavidT37. I did go through the thread . Since I used Windows Update to verify and install SP2 an dit did not complain about the system compatibility, I assume it is compatible. The thread indicated that Windows Update should be able to identify if the system is compatible or not.

The issue persists. So I decided to backout SP2 and live with only SP1, relying on antivirus, antispy and antiadware programs.

Thank you all for you help. If you findanything else, please post in this thread.