Comp keeps freezing/pausing

Alright, so I've had my computer for about 1 1/2 years, build it myself with parts off newegg and never have had any issues until now. I ordered Vista and the day after I ordered it it started acting up on my XP Pro. My computer starts freezing/pausing every few minutes while I'm navigating around almost anything (hard drive folders, internet pages, etc). Now my first thought was RAM or my hard drive (which is actually older than this current system, WD Raptor 74gb). So I tried swapping some sticks around, and that did nothing. So I get Vista and upgrade it, hoping to fix it, and again, it starts doing the same thing after I get it up and running.

Well I was planning on buying a large 2nd hard drive (WD Caviar 500gb 16mb cache) for storing stuff and so I just decided to order it now and put Vista on that and see if that solves the problem. Well that didn't seem to help one bit.

So I take it to Best Buy, giving them my extra sticks of ram, just having them install Vista on my raptor drive and leaving my 2nd one empty for storage. I get it back on Monday and they said that 2 of my sticks were malfunctioning so I just said forget the 4gigs and leave the 2 in. Its seemed to work great (except they left the vista copy on the 2nd hard drive anyway, but I removed that all fine), and then this afternoon it starts up again with the intermittent pausing/freezing. I can't play Age of Conan (just the only game I have on the comp atm anyway) or navigate smoothing around anywhere on the comp. In fact, if I play AoC it will completely freeze up

Any thoughts on to what could be causing this? I'm going to be calling Best Buy tomorrow to let them know this needs to be fixed, as I paid them good money and they didn't do a thing to fix it.


Specs are:
Core 2 Duo e6600 at 2.4ghz
2x1gb Corsair XMS2 pci6400 ram, 4-4-4-12
WD Raptor 74gb hd (main)
WD Caviar 500gb hd (storage)
eVGA 8800 GTS
OCZ Gamexstream 600w PSU
Gigabyte GA-965P-S3 mobo

I would run memtest on the ram sticks. But I think its your video card, either that or your psu is not pumping enough power, I doubt it. Probably the video card.

Alright so I just booted it up today and it didn't pause for about 20 minutes or so, but started doing it semi-frequently. Did it twice in 2-3 minutes and then didn't for about 10-15 minutes.

Also, I can move my mouse around while its frozen/paused....which seems odd to me.

I went through all 4 sticks of ram I have, all Corairs XMS2 pc6400 800mhz 1gb sticks, and putting them in one at a time they all act the same. Best Buy sent two of them back marked "Dead" but the other two do the same thing when put in solo.

So that's it? no fix? Well almost a year later and the problem hit me too. Drivers are updated, nearly same system as OP, lowered settings in-game, not my connection either. I tried posting on mmorpg.com AoC forums but not any solutions yet and cant post on AoC mainsite because Im still on trial status.