Weird computer problem

[Dew]

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP2 and ever since I brought my comp home it seems like something I'm running on it uses up all of the system's resources to the point where I cannot even use the mouse. Eventually it will get back to normal though, it's pretty weird.

It seems to only happen when I start utorrent and peer guardian so I'm assuming that's the cause, but it's strange because I was using them at my dorm and they never gave me any trouble. Last time my comp freaked out I saw one of those exclamation point warnings come up in the taskbar, meaning that my system was dangerously low on resources. Now I'm not running utorrent or peer guardian and everything is working fine.

So what do you guys think it could be, something I'm downloading maybe? A virus/spyware? I certainly don't think it's hardware related since I use this machine for 3D rendering and it was working fine at that. Plus I just cleaned all the dust and crap out of it.

[popley]

Have you checked to see if the computer might be over heating? Maybe a good system clean.

[Dew]

I just did clean out all the dust. Plus it has a fan on the processor, a rear fan blowing out and another fan on the power supply the sucks in. This system runs wicked cool.

I really don't think it's a hardware issue as it only seems to happen when utorrent and PG2 are running.

[Sir Savant]

Borked PG2 update?

[Calavera]

Have you went into the task manager and looked at the processes to see what is using the CPU?

[Dew]

I checked all that stuff and found nothing. I also ran numerous virus/spyware scans and it came up clean.

I just noticed something strange as hell though, last night it kept doing the locking up crap and I wiggled the front of the case and it stopped. Every time it has happened since I just wiggle the front of the case and it snaps out of it. I think what might be happening is I'm using a PS/2 keyboard and mouse because I left my usual ones at my dorm and perhaps one of the devices is malfunctioning or there's a bad connection somewhere.

I'm gonna swap them out for USB and I'm also gonna open up the case and check over some stuff and clean the RAM for good measure. I'm also going to move the case to a different spot. Hopefully that fixes it. It's still strange though since I can run games and 3D render on this without problems but when I run p2p apps it locks up occasionally. I have gotten it to do it a few times while just using firefox, but it just seems to always occur when I run anything p2p.

[Ex-Cyber]

Make sure that your Ethernet interface isn't sharing an interrupt with the keyboard or mouse (unfortunately I don't recall the exact procedure for this).

[Dew]

Make sure that your Ethernet interface isn't sharing an interrupt with the keyboard or mouse (unfortunately I don't recall the exact procedure for this).

Yeah an IRQ conflict did cross my mind. I went into my BIOS and disabled the serial and parallel ports to free up those IRQs, not like I use them anyway.

I did that and all the stuff I mentioned in my previous post and I've got utorrent, peer guardian and firefox going right now and everything seems to be okay now. It probably was a resource conflict.