my system is hanging

[ITlover]

I am using the same used Dell branded P3,system ,Win XP(SP2) with 128 MB RAM and 1Ghz intel Processor,bultin NIC, VGA and Sound Card. Since yesterday I see that my system hangs when I open the yahoo chat window from yahoo messenger or when I open a link searched from www.altavista.com.

Neither mouse nor keyboard works when my computer hangs and then I have to reset my Computer.

WinXP is installed in this Computer but when I start this Computer I get a messege:

Invalid Boot.ini.
Booting from C:\windows.

Is my Computer hanging because of the problem with boot.ini or is their any other problem?

what are other possible reasons why a system hangs?

[Cricket]

Originally Posted by ITlover what are other possible reasons why a system hangs?

There are many possible causes...something overheating (processor, video card, RAM, etc...), corrupt software (system files or program files), defective components, corrupt video drivers, etc...

When troubleshooting you have to work methodically. If this computer was working well before, what did you do right before the problem started?

If the computer has always been a little funky, don't install any new software until you figure out the exact cause of the problem.

Without knowing more about the computer or the history behind it's use it's hard to make a determination as to what is causing your system hangs.

128MB of RAM is way too little memory for Windows XP. How big is the hard drive and is it near capacity? If the hard drive is almost full then the swap file won't have room to work (and a WinXP computer with only 128MB of RAM will have a swap file that is working overtime).

Cricket

[ITlover]

Cricket,

I only installed a skyware killer software yesterday and their was a raphsodi music software installed by my nephew but this hanging problem was their even before the installation of these softwares.

well, I have 10 GB HD with 2 partitions C: and D: , the total free space on both partitions is 6.3 GB.

Another problem just sprang up, I am getting a messege on the bottom right of my taskbar near the clock where it says that a perticular file in windows folder is corrupt and this messege appears from a yellow balloon that has exclamation point.

Can this hanging problem be occuring because of this newly discovered problem?

[Cricket]

Need the exact error message and file name.

Cricket