50,000,000+ page faults normal? System unstable!

Hi all, I’m trying to get to the bottom of this problem with my pc.

Whenever I run any programs that downloads high volumes of data or generally write/read high volumes of data to my HD’s my computer becomes very unstable. Locks up for up to 30 seconds at times, but usually it locks up for about 1-2 seconds every 10 seconds or so.

This problem has only started about 2-3 weeks ago. I tried everything and finally decided to re-install vista (to a different HD) to solve this problem, well it didn’t because it’s happening again.

My system is quite old now (Vista x32, AMD 3000+, 250Gb SATA, 120Gb Standard HD, 2Gb DDR400, ATI x1600.) but I have never had this problem before and it seems to be getting worse by the day.

What I have tried!.

1, I have scanned both HDs using ‘Active@ Hard Disk Monitor’ both passed surface scan, both passed stability with scores of 87% and 90% and temperatures are quite low.

2, Then I did a system stability test using ‘EVEREST Ultimate’, I done stress test on CPU, FPU, cache, Memory, and local disks. I max’ed them all out and system was still stable, temperatures and voltages were good, and no lock ups at all.

I have 2 concerns, firstly ‘Task manager’ under page fault column shows one programs with 20 million+ page faults, another with 10 million plus, explorer has 8 million plus and rises about 200-300 per seconds. This can’t be good?. I have looked at other forums and read somewhere that page faults are when programs run out of memory but my memory usage very rarely goes over 50%.

My second concern is when I opened my case to remove 1 memory module at a time just to confirm that it’s not a memory problem I notice that the small fan on my Mobo had stopped and the heat sink was very hot, I have got it running now but I’m concerned that the chip set or whatever it was cooling maybe damaged now, could this be the problem??

Sorry for the long post, but best to give as much info as possible, any help would be great.

Thanks in advance. Alan.

Overheating chipset will definately cause page fault errors.