Help, PC keeps locking-up

[rc23]

Here's my problem:

My system:
O/S: WinME
Asus a7m266
Athlon 1400
512 ram
Radeon 9500pro
SB Audigy 2
2 HD, DVD, CDRW, 3.5

Occationally while using Internet explorer my PC will lock-up. What happens is I'll open a window and the IE window will freeze (not responding, in CLOSE PROGRAM). I can sometimes open other IE windows and they sometimes work. When I try and close these windows they become a "not responding" window too. Either immediately or shortly after this happens my PC will lock-up. While my PC is locked I am still able to move the mouse around the screen. The only thing to do is a reset. After the reset windows ME boots and starts up with scandisk. Occationally the PC will lock-up here too, but usually it runs scandisk and restarts normally.

I really don't know what is causing this, I don't know if it's a hardware or software problem. Any suggestions on what's wrong or tips on trouble shooting my problem ?

 

[mechBgon]

What's your power supply? You have some power-hungry stuff in there. I'd be recommending a 350W or higher power supply from a top-notch company like Enermax or Antec.

Also, what kind of heatsink/fan unit is cooling your processor, and how's your case cooling? If you're not sure on your case cooling, put an ordinary thermometer inside the case and run it for a while, then open the case and see what the temperature is reading on the thermometer.

 

[rc23]

Thanks for the reply mechBgon.

I have a 430w enermax PSU, so I think I have plenty of power. In the past I've run with just one hard drive and the problem still occurs.

As for my heat situation, Asus Probe software gives me these temperatures: CPU 66c/150f , MoBo 35c/95f. I dont know how acurate Asus Probe software is. I don't know my case tempature, but I think it's well cooled. I have a 2 front case fans, 1 sidefan , 1 back fan, PSU fan, a hard drive cooler 5.25 bay, video card fan, fan on my chipset, and a taisol cpu cooler. Also this error has often occured just after booting up my PC. I'd think it would take a bit of time for heat to build up and make my PC unstable. I often use my PC to play games. While running 3d games I really don't get odd crashes I'd attribute to overheating. Even after hours of game time

One game Asheron's call 2 used to give me the same problems (kinda). AC2 ran normally, when I exited and opened IE, the lock-up problem will immediately start. Reciently I did a clean install of WinME and I don't currently have AC2 on my system.

Another symtom of this problem is when i get a non responsive window, I can still launch some other windows apps and they will work. Example: my MP3 software will run, but games will not run (they just fail to load).