Windows XP applictions hanging?

A bit more complicated a problem than the title states.

Fresh install of windows XP service pack 2. Drivers installed and everything. I've built a lot of computers and I don't really consider myself a novice but I'm completely stumped.

Everything was fine last night. I turned off my monitor and went to bed. When I woke up, my computer was hanging. I'd try to alt tab through applications and my computer would slightly freeze. I went through a lot and finally just reinstalled windows XP on my operating system partition. Same results. I swapped hard drives, resintalled windows xp fresh on the new hard drive, same result.

It starts when I load up windows. When I try to click my name on the welcome screen it freezes up for a moment, then unfreezes. Then the next time I try to click it, it's as if my account on the screen isn't even there. If I click it really fast for a few minutes I'll eventually get on.

Once in windows, I can either right click my task bar OR my desktop. When I have my desktop selected, as in trying to use my desktop icons, my taskbar is completely unclickable. when I can finally click my start button my desktop becomes completely unclickable.

I finally got firefox open to try and google this problem, and the same sort of thing is happening with my firefox. i can either have my tab bar selected and scroll through tabs, or I can have the pages selected.

In addition, my scroll wheel on my mouse isn't working. This lead me to believe that it was a mouse related problem. I tried plugging my mouse into a different USB port, then i tried a different mouse all together, then a third mouse just to be positive.

I took my computer apart, reseated everything, checked the cords, looked for scorch marks or anything odd. aside from a bit of dust which i cleaned out, everything looked fine. I've only had this computer for a year.

Any ideas what could be wrong? It's a FRESH install and I'm at the end of my rope. Thank you.

 

Forgot to add, same problems in Safe Mode.

 

Swapped keyboards and I can still navigate the BIOS just fine.

I just installed an entirely new copy of windows XP, same issue as before. I can alt tab just fine through my windows explorer but if I try to click it with my mouse, it just acts as if the window on top isn't even there and brings the window behind it to the front. If I alt tab repeatedly back and forth it makes the window I want active, but still freezes up from time to time.

 

Only the second copy of windows I have is SP3, it's all I had available to me unfortunately.

Hello back. It is a very weird issue. I have never even heard of anything like it. Very frustrating.

When I reinstall, it's over my operating system partition. I delete the partition after booting with my windows disk, format it, and do a clean re-install.

After the windows installation, I use the disk that came with my motherboard to update/install the chipset, install the ethernet drivers and the driver for the onboard audio. Then I use the disk that came with my video card to install my video driver. That is all i have been installing these last few installs so I could see if any of my apps was causing the problem. My mouse did not come with drivers and it has never needed any.

I will try doing a windows update on this fresh install and see if that remedies the problem somehow.

 

One other possibility/idea. Have you checked for updates to the chipset and drivers. You said you were loading these from the original CD, maybe there was some necessary update?:wave
Just a thought.

 

I will try that too, thanks!

 

Alright, I updated my chipsets, did windows update, and made sure all my drivers are up to date. No change at all.

The only things I currently have installed are my basic drivers/update utilities. Didn't even install firefox.

 

Just for giggles, maybe try diagnostic mode boot.?:wave

But I've never run into this with a fresh install.