Vista lockups af a short time of use!!!

Vista lockups af a short time of use a mild sound can also be heard in the background, everthing on the screen freezes and it remain on the last thing being worked on I have to restart the pc but XP work well though What can be the problem? Any help would be appreciated!

my system

e8400
Asus p5q pro p45
HIS 4870
2gb ram (cyberpower)
500gb Hitachi sata HD
SIGMA SHARK 635W PS
Cooler Master centurion 590
Acer 22" lcd

Bad ram is a possibility though if it has been working fine under a heavy load in XP then it is probably OK. The problem you describe sounds like the various driver issues that i have experienced under XP and Vista.

I suggest you try the following.

1. Update the Bios - This appears to be critical for running Vista on many machines. Old Bios can kill the install, short term and long term running of Vista even if XP works fine.

2. Update the sound card, video drivers and motherboard drivers - more common killers for Vista.

3. Update all other drivers.

4. Do a memory diagnostic under XP

5. All else fails start pulling out hardware till you get back to the bare basics of your computer machine. i.e. Motherboard/CPU/RAM(use only 1 stick if you have two)/Video Card (if there is no on board video). Then try it and see if it still crashes. If it doesn't start putting things back in till you find the one that crashes the machine. Make sure you don't fry anything with static as you do this.

Hope this helps

dave