AMD to Intel????

[Jun aka Pekto]

Spec of my current setup

Amd64 3200+ venice rev DH-E6 - 2 Ghz (10-multiplier x 200 bus speed) single core.
ASrock 939Dual-SATA2
2 x 1 GB Corsair TwinX DDR 400 - 2 gb
GeCube Ati Radeon 9550 Extreme edition 128mb AGP8x
Coolermaster Centurion 5 w/ Coolermaster 350 Watts PSU
120GB Seagate 7200 PATA
80 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
300 GB Seagate 7200 SATA
NEC 2510A 8x Dvd-/+ r/rw/dvd9

===========================

All things equal with my old Intel cpu/mobo set-up, then and now. Not the latest drivers, but only four months old or less.

I really think its the MOBO/chipset, that's abit pokey. I would stay away from the N-force chipsets bec. it never seem to run out of problems plaquing it.

I haven't had any problems with mine either in XP Home or Vista RC1. But my setup's substantially different from yours.....
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4200+
MBOARD: MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum (S939, pci-e, non-SLI, nForce 4 Ultra)
PSU: Antec Truepower II 480
VIDEO: 256mb pci-e ASUS AEX800XL ViVo
RAM: Corsair 2 x 1gb DDR-400
SOUND: SB Audigy 2 Value and built-in Realtek AC97 7.1 audio
HARD DRIVES: WD Caviar 200gb IDE (XP Home) - IDE 1 Master
WD Caviar 250gb IDE (Storage and Page File) IDE 1 Slave
Maxtor 40gb IDE (Vista RC1) IDE 2 Slave

OPTICAL DRIVE: Pioneer DV-109 IDE 2 Master
OTHER DRIVES: External Firewire 120GB 3.5" hard drive (Storage)
External USB2 60GB 2.5: hard drive (Storage)

It's the same exact setup I had when I first assembled it in Jul 2005 It's been rock-solid since day 1.

I'll have to assume you're correct in determining it's your hardware at fault. But, yours have ULi as the chipset listed while mine has the nForce 4 Ultra plus, I'm using a dualcore cpu.

Since your freezes happen during multi-tasking, have you taken a look to see which programs hog the most cpu resources at that point? Traditionally, it's been during the antivirus scan and scanning huge images that took up the most cpu resources in my older pc's. It's not much of an issue with the dualcore X2 4200+. The pc just keeps going. Also, have you tried a Linux Live CD and see if the same problems persist? If it still does, then it's definitely mobo/cpu/hardware related.

The software setup of this pc:
WinXP Home
AVG
Windows Defender
ASUS latet video drivers for X800XL
Built-in XP Firewall - I had the nVidia Active Armor firewall. But I uninstalled it after I mistakenly thought it was at fault for slow internet. The actual culprit was a cable splitter. Cox Cable did an upgrade and forgot to tell me about taking the splitter off.

As for multitasking........no issues. In fact, I've been on a Divx---->iPod mp4 binge, converting all my Divx recordings (with Ulead Video Studio 10) for use on an iPod. I've been surfing here and watching You Tube caps all at once...