Having problems with Vista HP 64bit freezing

I just recently upgraded from Windows Home Premium 32bit to the 64bit version and I am having problems with it randomly freezing. The freeze up usually occurs when I am installing a program, just starting to download a file, and even sometimes when I am surfing the web. When my system freezes it like everything locks up...mouse, keyboard, HDD, monitor...everything. The only way to restore my system is a hard boot. I had no problems with Vista 32 bit and it ran well for almost a year so I have a feeling it is a software problem.

System specs

Asus M2N-Sli Deluxe motherboard (Bios version 1604...most recent)
AMD Phenom 9600 2.3
4GB Corsair XMS2 DDR2 240pin Ram (2gb x 2) both in the correct slots
EVGA GTX 260 Core 216 Video card (most updated 64bit drivers installed from the nvidia website)
Creative SoundBlaster Extreme Gamer X-Fi soundcard (most updated drivers installed from the creative website…says they support vista 64bit)
PC power and cooling 750watt psu 60amps on a single 12v rail
250gb Seagate barracuda HDD
Lite On 22x sata dvd-rw drive
Windows Vista home premium edition 64bit

Not sure what is causing the freeze ups…sometimes it will run for hours and then freeze sometimes it will freeze 5min after I boot it up…seems to always happen when I’m doing something in windows…example installing a program.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

forgot to mention all default bios settings

What antivirus software are you running? I had a very similar problem while running BitDefender - once I removed it the issue went away.

Cameron.

im using AVG Free...version 8 or whatever the newest one is...says on the website its compatible with vista 64bit.

not going to take the time to figure this out, seems like it could be soo many issues...reinstalling vista 32bit which will work good enough for me.

Had this same problem myself. As well as a few others:
Random Freezing
Random Freezing (Lordbob75)

In both cases, the problem resolved itself by waiting.... We never figured it out. Has this been happening for more than a month?

~Lordbob

Nope I just recently upgraded to x64, but I have already reformatted and reinstalled x32 and it works just as good as it did before...I may try again in the future but just don't want to take the time to try and figure this one out atm.

No problem then

~Lordbob