BMM389EC
I had what sounds like the same problem on a Hewlett Packard 990c desktop running Windows XP Home Edition, except that in addition to freeze ups the mouse cursor would often hesitate and lag behind where it should have been. I found that unplugging the USB optical mouse for a few seconds and then plugging it back in would un-freeze the mouse and return the computer to normal operation, but only until the next time. I am curious to hear whether this works for you also. I assume this fix works by the computer recognizing the re-connected mouse as a new device and correctly installing it.
I found that although I could use this trick to overcome each freeze, the freezes became more frequent (e.g. once in five minutes) and the USB socket was wearing out. The long term fix was to "Restore" to an earlier date and to remove a lot of files and clean up the Registry of things that I knew should not have been there. Also downloaded McAfee Virus Scan (free trial for 30 days) which reported it had found a virus and deleted it: "Virus Name:
JS/Logo.dropped". This does not mean anything to me but maybe someone knowledgeable in viruses can say more. However, after two weeks McAfee imposed innumerable advertising pop-ups and no easy way to stop the pop-ups or uninstall it. I finally deleted the McAfee directories and then removed all references to McAfee in the Registry (needed three passes through the registry to do this). After which (for six weeks so far) I have had no more freeze-ups and no more McAfee pop-ups.
My impression is that the freeze-ups started at a time when I was trying out multiple browsers (Internet Explorer, Netscape Communicator, Opera, and Mozilla Firebird) and used the same home page for each of them. The mouse froze up immediately and I got an error message "Error - too many re-directs for URL" or words to that effect. The same sequence occurred on several re-boots. I uninstalled Opera and Firebird after which, for a week or so, there were no more freeze ups. After that the freeze ups started again and occurred with increasing frequency over the next two months. The permanent (I hope) fix was as explained in the previous paragraph.
Zone Alarm was in use the whole time, i.e. there was no correlation between the use of ZA and freeze ups.
Good luck.
