Windows XP Pro taskbar freaking out and making my computer unusable

Blasphemous

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Aug 24, 2008
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I just did a fresh install of Windows XP Pro on my new system. The specs, in case they matter in this scenario, are 6660 Quad Core, 4 Gigs of RAM (I'm using the 32 bit XP so I know I'm not getting use of the full 4). I haven't had this problem happen to me while I have been on it, but if I let it sit too long, eventually the entire taskbar, start button and system tray goes crazy. Imagine half of the system tray all of a sudden being in the top left corner of the screen, while the other half is where it's supposed to be. The taskbar and start button are also at the top of the screen. My mouse works fine, but I can't open anything and when I try to CTRL+ALT+DEL to open the task manager to restart explorer, task manager won't come up. I've been working on computers forever and have never seen anything like this. I set it so it never shuts down the hard drive or the monitor.

Any ideas?

 
My initial reaction to that sort of problem would be to think that it's hardware related - a dodgy power supply or an overheating problem. Have you monitored the CPU and GPU temperatures to see if they are OK?
 

Blasphemous

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Aug 24, 2008
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I would think that as well, but once I immediately restart it, it works perfectly. If you have any suggestions about something I can use to monitor and log that, I would greatly appreciate it.