Dark Comet :
So its normal for the system to lock up if its rare and not all the time?
Cheers for the help.
Yes and possibly no. It may depend on your particular hardware/software/drivers/settings etc. as to how often exactly you get a problem but an occasional glitch is certainly par for the course. This is not to say that your problem is just a routine glitch. There may be a fix for you in updated drivers or a service pack or in an updated piece of software. I'm just saying that an unresponsive program cropping up from time to time is definitely not unusual. Sometimes you can find fixes and sometimes you can't. You may have just been lucky with your XP system. XP systems crash too, it's not really any worse with Vista I don't think. Not on new PCs with new equipment anyway.
The jumping sound thing - I'd sure get the latest drivers for my sound card and if that does not fix it I'd look into it more deeply. That sure sounds like a possible driver issue.
Could you list your system specs? How much RAM, sound card, motherboard etc. Thanks. We may be able to help you narrow this down some.