Windows acting odd

Ok, so I just reformatted my computer, and installed a fresh version of Windows XP Pro. However, I'm having this one problem. Sometimes, programs will appear to load, but never actually run. Windows'll display the hourglass pointer, but it just goes away after a while. This happens with everything: Games, word processors, Internet browsers, etc. I've checked every system log I can think of, but there doesn't seem to be any indication of an error. I was getting this problem before I reformatted, in fact, it was the very reason I reformatted, so it might be a hardware/driver error.

My PC's specifications are as follows:
Mobo: Asus AN78X-X
Processor: AMD Athlon 2400+ 2GHz
Video card: ATI Radeon 9600XT-128
RAM: I don't know the manufacturer, but I have half a gig of it.
Hard Drives: Western Digital Caviar WD120 120GB/Seagate Barracuda 200GB
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster LIVE!
OS: Windows XP Professional SP1

Your computer is the ghey, thats whats wrong

>>1
Windows always acts odd

>>3
I know that but this problem is seriously hindering my productivity. I have to restart the fucking thing to run any programs.

Maybe you've accidentally disabled virtual memory?

Or if a restart fixes it, maybe some background process is leaking memory? Did you check memory usage in the task manager?

Perhaps you used Internet Explorer.

>>6
The problem is, Task Manager won't even open when the error occurs.
>>7
Using Firefox. NO I WILL NOT SWITCH TO OPERA UNLESS IT SOLVES THIS PROBLEM. DON'T EVEN TRY.

>>8
So open it after a restart and leave it open until the problems begin.

>>8
Well that's strange. Something has gone really wrong. Do as >>9 says, leave taskmgr.exe open (in minimized state), then when the problems begin restore it and try to see if you can spot a motherfucker process causing that, then proceed to inform us of what kind of shit is it so we don't run it.

>>1

Sure there's not some component gone FUBAR? Likely culprits will be RAM and HD. There are tools to check those, forgot the name for RAM check, but you can try Chkdsk or (better) some third-party equivalent (like Norton).

Anyway, a constant swap file of some 1.5 to 2.5 x physical RAM size, sounds like a plan to me. (Not sure about _good_ plan tho... ^_^)

And definitely keep taskmgr open at (if minimized) all times. Then you'll also see how much CPU has been used the last 5-10 minutes (again don't remember exactly, left for the penguin years ago).

buy a new computer