Freezes up when connected to the internet

[jack]

My computer locks up while connected to the internet, and requires a hard boot to continue. I haven't experienced this problem while offline. It doesn't always lock up, but seems like it does so mainly while entering a site while entering a lot of information or graphics on it, sometimes it will load a page it froze on with no problems.
I am using a athlon processor (axda200dut3c), a western digital 80gb hard drive, a mx400 Geforce 2 graphics accelerator, and a soyo sy-k7vta pro motherboard, and windows xp.

[Rob]

This can be caused by a lot of things, from viruses to video drivers to firewalls and so on. Has it always done this, or did it start at some point? If it started at some point, was there anything different done to the computer at about that point?

[jack]

It has done it since the first time I used it, right after I assembled it out of all new parts, the only thing original is the power cord and the casing. Could there be a prob with the L2 cache, and if so, how can I tell?? In bios, it states its enabled, but in a visit to pc pitstop they informed me that it was not being detected. Thanks ahead of time!

[Rob]

I found this link with a bunch of things to try. Some of them seem like good suspects for the symptons you have.
http://inquirer.philly.com/newsroom/faq/pages/fdb7df9-82.html

I don't see why it would be a L2 cache problem. If that were a problem then wouldn't offline be a problem, too?

Try doing graphics intensive functions offline, such as a top-tier game or 3D Mark 05, to check out all things video.

[jack]

I got the updated drivers for the graphics card, and tried it out. Still froze up, so I tried some graphics intense games, it on locked up once on diablo II (partial install, still using disk) and several times on a simpler game (full install). I have tried running the resource meter and it indicates that it is locking under high cpu usage (98-100%). Today, i logged off the internet and it refused to close down ie explorer page after dropping the connection, even after waiting 5 minutes. It allowed me to pull up the task manager and it indicated 100% cpu usage, so I started checking processes to figure out what was consuming the bulk, and it was ie (70,000k). After I shut it down in task manager, the computer started responding again.
Any Ideas? I'm stumped!

[Rob]

It sounds like you're closing in on the problem. I googled around and found some other message posts that might be helpful.

http://www.computing.net/security/wwwboard/forum/14619.html

http://www.devhood.com/messages/message_view-2.aspx?thread_id=41289