Last year (April 2009) I got an assembled system with config:
Processor : AMD Phenom(tm) 9650 Quad-Core Processor Speed : 2.31GHz
Mainboard : Gigabyte GA-MA78GM-S2HP
Memory : Transcend 2GB DDR2-800 (2 nos. = 4GB)
No Sound or Graphic cards
My OS is Windows XP SP3, installed last year and running so far without any issues other than the one below.
I keep OS and all software up to date.
Now the problem:
Since the last 1 or 2 months my system freezes whenever I use Windows Explorer. Even Ctrl-Alt-Del won’t revive the OS.
Just anything I do will trigger this, it may even be just moving the mouse within the Explorer window. Also happens in the Search window. Sometimes it takes around 2 minutes of activity for the problem to happen.
The problem does NOT occur when I use dialog boxes to navigate the filesystem. So now I go through Start, Run, Browse to browse folders without any issues.
The power button on my box is configured to shut it down so when Explorer freezes the system, I press the Power button and XP shuts down normally after terminating all programs. A thing I noticed is that the power button on the KEYBOARD does not work when this problem occurs though it works normaaly otherwise (it shuts down XP).
Tried disabling everything using autoruns. Tried a full av scan yesterday using avast and also installed XP over itself. Didn’t help.
Issue does not seem to occur in safe mode.
No problem using any other program.
Now the only option left is a clean install which is the last thing I want to do hence this post requesting for help.