system freezes (hangs) periodically

[meitak]

My system has been freezing (or hanging) every 10 to 30 minutes.
It's been doing this for a while now. It doesn't really
matter what I'm doing, but when I have everquest running it does seem to get worse.
What happens is the entire computer freezes for about 5 to 30 seconds- I can't move
the mouse or use the keyboard- the screen is frozen, and the button on my box stops
blinking- Sometimes I stare at the button and wait until it starts blinking again
and I know the computer has "woken up" again.

I'm going to try to list info about my computer:

- HP pavilion xt878
- 256 RAM
- AMD Athlon Processor AuthenticAMD ~1298 Mhz
- Hard Drive- 111GB, free space: 29.5GB
- DSL (the problem was still there when I used dialup)
- Sound card - Crystal WDM Audio Codec
- Video card - nvidia riva tnt2 pro (hp)

-System Model: 15396400001125
-System type: X86 based PC
-BIOS version: EPP revision 9.00
-Total Physical Memory: 255.45 MB
-Available Physical Memory: 280.00 KB
-Total Virtual Memory: 2.00 GB
-Available Virtual Memory: 627.71 MB
-Page File Space: 1.75 GB

Programs Running:
Control Panel
Explorer
PowerStrip
Winmgmt
Mpftray
Wusb11cfg
Mpfagent
Mcvsescn
Mcagent
Systray
Mcvsrte
Eqwgfix
-------------------------
If there is any more info that would be helpful that I could post please let me know.
Any help would be appreciated, this problem has been driving me crazy lately. Thanks-

[tetonbob]

Are all the fans on your system spinning when it is powered up? This would include the one on the power supply, the CPU, the video card, if it has one, and any case fans.