Links stop responding for a short time on my laptop

[Jonesie]

Sorry to ask if this has been covered in another area, I did search and couldn't find anything even close to what I've been experiencing with this laptop.

Sometimes when I'm using my laptop the links stop responding, the file, edit view history etc all work fine as well as the x on the tabs, but if I want to click a link or click to enter text it won't respond. Then for no apparent reason it starts working again, this may take a minute or two or it may take several minutes.

My laptop is an HP running microsoft windows xp professional version 2002 with service pack 3
Intel (R) Pentium (R) M
processor 1600 MHZ
1.59Ghz
1.5 GB of Ram

I'm not sure what other info would help you to determine my problem so I'll post this and await a response.
Thanks so much in advance, I'm baffled!
CJ

[Quantos]

Welcome to Computer Hope.

What processes and programs do you have running in the background?

[Jonesie]

Thank you for the welcome 

I have 37 processes running:
 alg.exe; igfxsrvc.exe, ctfmon.exe NMBgMonitor.exe, jusched.exe; SynTPEnh.exe, SynTPLpr.exe; rundll32.exe AGRSMMSG.exe, taskmgr.exe avgcsrvx.exe; MDM.EXE; jqs.exe; svchost.exe, avgwdsvc.exe; svchost.exe. spoolsv.exe;firefox.exe; svchost.exe; avgrsx.exe; rundll32.exe; svchost.exe; svchost.exe svchost.exe; avgemc.exe; svchost.exe; ati2evxx.exe; lsass.exe; services.exe; winlogon.exe; csrss.exe; smss.exe; avgnsx.exe; explorer.exe;ati2evxx.exe; System; System Idle Process

And one program running: Mozilla Firefox

On a possibly related topic, why are there so many repeated processes running? Like all the svchost.exe what is that about?
Thanks
CJ

[Allan]

Reboot. As soon as you see the blue welcome screen depress and HOLD the LEFT CTRL key and keep it depressed until Windows finishes loading (when the cursor remains an arrow) - should take about a minute. None of your programs should load except for the Anti Virus. See if the problem remains.

[Jonesie]

I tried rebooting and holding down the left mouse button and it loaded everything as it usually does.  I don't really get a blue welcome screen, or if I do it goes by so fast I don't see it so I held down the button as soon as I saw the windows loading screen.

What did I do wrong?

[Allan]

Left mouse button? I said left CTRL key

[Jonesie]

OH! Well that makes a difference!  LOL Geez CJ Pay Attention!!

I'll try that again now 

[Jonesie]

I did try it (correctly this time)using the LEFT CTRL key,  but it loaded everything anyway.
Except now it is showing 38 processes running. What am I trying to get to NOT load when I am doing this?

The problem is very sporadic, I never know when its going to act up. It may take several hours before it will stop responding or it could do it several times in an hour or so. It seems to have no rhyme or reason to it at all.

Thanks for your input, I really do appreciate it!
CJ

[Allan]

If you depress and hold the left CTRL key starting when the blue Welcome screen appears, you will stop all startup items from loading. If you depress & hold the left SHIFT key, items in the STARTUP folder will not load. This only works with OS's up through XP. You most hold the key down from the time the Welcome key appears until the OS is finished loading. If you can't do it, just do a diagnostic startup from msconfig.

[Jonesie]

Ok so I tried it again, and got the same result. Then I tried using the msconfig as you suggested Allen. But that was too severe as I couldn't access the internet either.

I really don't know what to do at this point, I've now spent the better part of a day on this issue and I don't know any more now than I did when I first came here.

Allen I really appreciate your input, but I don't see what good it has done me, the problem will probably occur again as I didn't change anything at all.

Could you explain to me what it is I might be looking for at least?

[Allan]

Trying to see if something loading with the system is interfering with your browser. Tell you what, let's try the easiest possible option - try a different browser - Firefox, Safari, Opera - let's see how that works, okay?

[Jonesie]

Ok, and by the way Allen, thanks for not taking my last post too harshly, it wasn't intended to be adversarial at all.

I'm switching to IE I'll post back if/when it happens again.

Again Allen, thanks!
CJ

[Jonesie]

Well that was fast! I opened IE and everything froze again right away, although I did leave Firefox open when I opened IE.

I'll try that again after closing Firefox and see if it repeats.


It just lasts for a few minutes but its so frustrating!

[Allan]

Have you run a full system scan with your av? If not, do so now. Also download and run a scan with MalwareBytes

[Jonesie]

I have done a full scan with AV, I don't know where to get MalwareBytes, I'll do a search with Google and find it. I did run a scan with Dr Web and it also didn't find anything unusual. I'll let you know what MalwareBytes comes up with.
Thanks