System Freezes

[Crunchy]

I have a homemade system.
AMD XP Barton 2500 CPU
MSI K7N2G-L Motherboard
768MB DDR RAM
Maxtor 60GB Hard Drive
400watt Power Supply
Onboard GeForce 4 MX
Onboard network port
Onboard Sound

This system is showing a freeze every second, for a fraction of a second.
For example, if you activate the 3D Floweer Box screen saver, you watch the ball bounce around while it "lags out" every second for a brief moment.
The same happens while playing games online like Counter Strike. Awfully hard to aim and shoot someone while you are moving so jaggedly.
It happens as soon as I boot up and the CPU is at 85 degrees as well as when it is warmed up at 104 degrees. All the voltages look in spec.
My best thought was video card. I disabled the onboard GeForce 4, rebooted in a standard VGA mode then installed my old GeForce 2 Pro. SAME thing still happen. Removed the Ge F 2 and re activated the onboard. I have no solid ideas at this point, except to speculate it could be my CPU or MoBo. Any ideas? Thanks.

[ski]

Those CPU temps are F, right?

Make sure that full acceleration is selected for the video card, and that it's using the latest drivers.

If ok, then shut down all unnecessary programs running in the background, especially an antivirus program.

If no luck, then update your AV program, and manually check for viruses.
Also, run Ad-aware, Spybot, and CWShredder to remove any spyware.

If still no good, then run Hijack This, and post its results.

[Quantax]

RAM problems as well could cause this, not an inadequate amount cause you're fine with that but some sort of fault. Suggest you also run memtest86 which is downloaded onto a floppy and run for several hours.

[Crunchy]

Those temps are F.
I do have the latest video drivers, but I will check the acceleration.
Will also try shutting down whatever is running in the backround.
Perhaps I'll boot up in Safe mode.
Norton is up to date.
I run ad aware and Spybot regularly.
I am using Kingston PC3200 CAS 2.5 RAM.
I will also try memtest86 tonight and report results later.

Thanks!

[ski]

Highly recommend that you run Hijack This.
It's a powerful tool that detects spyware which others can miss.

Also, if you run the system in Safe mode, then games may not run because they may need 256 colors or higher.
A better method to check for software and driver conflicts is to do a clean boot.

[Crunchy]

Of all the stupid crap !!!!
My Iomega Zip Drive was causing it.
I rarely use it anymore since the CDRW is better.
If the ZIP is ON, it causes me troubles.
If it's OFF, everything is fine.
I downloaded the latest iomegaware program/drivers, but it did not help.
Screw it. I uninstalled it and life is wonderful again.
Thanks for the help.
Crunchy.