Windows/Software freezes

[slick_711]

Hi, I'm having a problem with my computer

I'm usually decent with computers, but I'm far from an expert, anyway, this seems to be a software problem, but I can't figure out which software. I'm pretty big into playing Final Fantasy XI in my freetime, and just the other day that froze up, and any time I have tried to run the game since then it will go through all the opening screens, and then freeze up right as it begins to load the game itself. This happened to me once before, and I was told to un-install / re-install the game and that a file must have become corrupted.

However, the game freezes up, the file check system for the game freezes up, AND ad-aware freezes up before it can finish scanning. I've run both PC-cillin and Ewido Security Suite, which found nothing wrong with the PC. I also de-fragmented both drives and did file cleanup and all the other silly little things I could think of that may or may not affect this. The thing that has me stumped is that when I try to uninstall the game through control panel that freezes up also.

I've tried to run sfc.exe but it just pops up a DOS window that closes before I can read it, so I'm going to try to figure that out, and also check www.memtest.org (I have yet to do that, just saw it on another post here). If anyone has had a similar problem or could tell me what I need to do it would be very much appreciated.

My system is a sony desktop (few years old)
WinXP Home SP2
2.2Ghz Pentium 4
768 MB of RAM

Not sure what other specs I would need to share? Oh and the graphics card is pretty new, Nvidia GeForce 5700. Not the best but I'm not a rich man.

Thank you all for your help/consideration in this matter. Hopefully it's not something silly that I've overlooked and wasting people's time.

*Edit* Ok, I ran two passes of memtest86 and it found 0 memory errors.

[Digitalic]

Ok first, did you install any softare or devices just prior to the freeze ups or update any drivers particularly display drivers?

Did you tweak any performance options, if any, in Final Fantasy prior to the problem or in any other games\apps you have?

Try backing your display hardware acceleration a notch and see if that helps.

To run sfc, start\cmd to get the command prompt and then type in sfc.exe.

[slick_711]

Ok, I ran SFC and (I assume) it found no problems or fixed the ones it did find, I had to run to the store while it was running, and it was gone when I returned.

I have not changed the settings/configuration for anything or downloaded any new drivers recently; and the only program I installed recently was fraps, which runs concurrently with FFXI, but it worked fine for at least 2 weeks. I haven't installed anything more recently than that.