Alright, alright.....I'll give my little dust bunnies a new home and invest in more RAM, which I had wanted to do anyway, and maybe even an extra fan somewhere, but the original question still persists....why such a "hard" freeze, and why at such a specific event? As I mentioned, I can work a long time and save many times by clicking the "save" icon in the toolbar, but using "save" or "save as" in the fly down window under the "file" command usually ends up in a total lock-up....and the length of time I have been working doesn't seem to matter. My machine has locked me out as early as the first save event. I work with Corel and have no problem (so far) but working with ArtCam or ArtShade...I freeze..hard and total. This is what makes me think there is a deeper, more specific problem than the general heat/RAM thing. I rarely have occasion to work with word processing, or data bases on this machine, so I don't know how they behave during a save. I just find it interesting/frustrating that my machine locks at such a specific event.. and just have to wonder......Is how computers handle a "save" or "save as" command specific to individual programs, or is it an operating system issue?

go to start>control panel> administrative tools> event viewer in event viewer you will see 3 options, clicking on those will open a window for you to check your events logs in each of those sections, you mainly want to look at the one that says system but looking at the others is a good idea too it might lead to something too. So open the system one and you will see rows and rows of info what you want to look for or any with a red circle and an x that is an error code, the yellow ones are also important but not as important as red ones. click on a red one to select it then double click on it to open the info box on it. That is where it will tell you an error number and the detailed info on what is causing the error, if you have many see if they are all the same, then tell us what the error messages are and include the event numbers. When was the last time you ran an antivirus scan or antispyware scan on the pc? What you describe can often be caused by infections. I would update your antivirus and run a full scan if you can If not you can do one online possibly at Trend Micro's FREE online virus scanner You should also get the free superantispyware, you can download it, install hit update, choose your C drive to scan then do full scan, let it clean anything it finds. SUPERAntiSpyware Let us know if you are able to do those things and the results

" I get these problems at the very worst times." I'm sorry you're having problems. You imply that this has happened to you before. With all due respect, you should critically assess your antivirus/protection software and your internet practices. What you're doing and/or using is the root cause, because such problems should never occur.

My computer runs 24/7, less occasional reboots. I have it open the last pages I had open and I have several pages (TV logs, a couple weather pages, OneTab, email page and my "home page") pinned. I made my own start page with links to common places I go. This developed over the years. I added images for radar, weather forecasts, etc and has since grown to a large page. I often have a number of pages open. For instance when I go to some YouTube pages I wind up opening up others that are linked on that page. I open them in new tabs so I don't lose the other links of interest. Then close them down. If the computer locks up or something, it'll open the last set of pages and I can continue. One of the best things I did was spend the time making up a page of links. Now I tend to use OneTab more than the link page but it still has the old links and info on there so it gets used quite often. I never liked the bookmark/favorites setup on browsers. Works great for me.