XP Pro freezing

My PC has begun freezing in the last week. Not suprising, since the Task Manager shows 30+ processes being loaded at start-up (Windows XP Pro running on a 1 GHz P3 with 256M RAM). Problem is I can't even get into the Task Manager to terminate any processes (not that I know what they are, where they came from, or which one to terminate anyway). Restoring to a previously known stable (???) configuration doesn't even work. Next step, reload XP. Any ideas?

 

start>run type msconfig hit enter, go to the startup tab and uncheck the things you don't want to load at startup anymore. Click Apply then ok, and restart. See if that helps any.