IE and/or office unresponsive

[frizzy]

I've got a couple of dell machines that are locking up it seems like only when they are in IE and/or office apps. However, the lock ups are odd, when the machines lock up, there is no error recorded in the system logs. When the computers lock, the system becomes completely un responsive (cant ctrl, alt, delete, etc) and sometimes the mouse becomes un responsive as well. The only way to get the system out of this lock up is to hard boot the machine. So far I've tried:
1) removed and re-install IE in the add/remove windows components. (of course its completely impossible for the mahines in question to have IE fully removed)
2) Re-install office
3) Roll back recent patches
4) re-image the machines in question

Does anyone have any ideas what could cause IE and/or office to cause locks ups of this type? I've been looking everywhere to try and find the source of the locks but there are limited resources to find the lock ups.

Also, does anybody know of any sort of software that could record a lock up (other than the standard event viewer and dr. watson)

Thanks

[frizzy]

I've been doing some more work on this issue and so far i Have found that that this computer never fully locks per say. When the IE locks occur, in process viewer, the procesor is maxed out and just stays maxed out until the machine is hard booted. I have tried rolling back patches, and re-installing drivers with not luck yet.

Any ideas would be appreciated

thanks