Even a 300W PSU sounds low. On the other hand, I have a 600 W PSU. When I bought my new MSI graphics card six months ago, it specified a certain voltage and amperage for the PSU. When I mentioned to MSI that the only PSU I could find that met the specs was at least 800 W, they said I was okay. Go figure. So far there hasn't been a problem.

Originally Posted by richc46

This is what you do
MAKE A SYSTEM RESTORE POINT NOW.
Then download and try Lasso. About 75% of members report success, the others want it removed.
Restore is the best way to remove this software.
Process Lasso - CNET Download.com

Installed it and watched it monitor the processes and then it froze. Restarted and the second I hit the 'Play' button on a YouTube video it froze again. Went ahead and restored the system to pre-Lasso.

Originally Posted by wither 3

Even a 300W PSU sounds low. On the other hand, I have a 600 W PSU. When I bought my new MSI graphics card six months ago, it specified a certain voltage and amperage for the PSU. When I mentioned to MSI that the only PSU I could find that met the specs was at least 800 W, they said I was okay. Go figure. So far there hasn't been a problem.

Unfortunately, the HP Slimlines limit the type of PSU you can physically install. The largest wattage I could find that would fit into the space allowed was the 250W that I have. I'm not a gamer so it really wasn't an issue.

Originally Posted by townsbg

I suggest that you remove the drivers for the intel chip to prevent any conflicts.

The on-board graphics is the nVidia chipset. I uninstalled that and the 8400GS graphics card, ran Driver Sweeper to ensure that all nVidia drivers were uninstalled, reinstalled the graphics card with updated drivers from nVidia's website, restarted and launched Firefox. After approx 10 minutes the system froze.

I think it's all for not. I used Karen's Replicator and took everything off the Vista machine I wanted and need. I then formated the hard drive and reinstalled from the recovery discs I made years ago. I installed Security Essentials first and then downloaded and installed all the updates. After restarting I went to the folder with all the programs I wanted to install and while scrolling, it froze. Nothing on the machine except update and an antivirus. Because the freezing began out of nowhere, I can't help but feel that either one of the CPU cores (although test OK) or one of the updates is causing this.

Any suggestions at this point? If not, I'll just load all the docs, pic, videos, etc. on my 13" laptop, box up the HP Slimline and call it a day. There a reason for the freeze up but I just don't have the knowledge to take care of it and you guys don't have the luxury of having the computer to figure it out. To say I'm frustrated is an understatement because I like Vista so much more than Win 7 (laptop). Anyway, the cupboard is bare on the Vista machine if you have any suggestions.

THANK YOU for all your suggestions to date.

Originally Posted by townsbg

Is this a fresh install or a backup of a previous image? Have you tried a fresh install using the recovery partition? Have you scanned the hard drive and memory?

Recovery Partition apparently corrupt as I could not access it via F11 at startup or via the Recovery manager within Vista. 3 recovery discs made at the time of purchase, so the HD was formatted. One thing I noticed over time is a ton of programs installed ended up having some type of files on the recovery partition. GIMP, Security Essentials, and on and on show up when D:/ is checked in Process Explorer.

I used the Western Digital hard drive utility that tested for bad sectors, etc. For the memory I used memtest86+. After an excruciatingly long testing period both passes with no errors.

Capacity: 286 GB
Used: 35.3 GB
Free: 251 GB