Windows 7 keeps pausing for 5-10 seconds

[markcoronado]

I have 3 different Windows 7 operating systems that are doing this.
One is my desktop that has 7 Ultimate and the other 2 are my dual boot laptop running Home on one partition and Ultimate on the other partition.
The laptop also has a 3rd partition with Ubuntu 10.04 and does not have this freezing/pausing problem.
When it pauses the mouse pointer will swirl and I can still move the pointer around but I'm unable to scrool or select anything for 5-10 seconds & Not Responding will show in Outlook, Firefox or IE, then the swirling stops and everything returns back to normal. This happens randomly so it's hard to try and pinpoint what the cause is.
The other day I was watching a live streaming playoff hockey game and every so often the video would freeze but the audio would not and after 5-10 seconds the video would catch up with the audio.
I don't think this is a hardware problem because it happens on 2 different computers.
I did try and disable my anti virus & firewall (ESET 5.0.93.0) but that didn't make a difference.

I need help, this is getting annoying & Ubuntu is looking better all the time..
I'm open for suggestions.

 

[typhoonblue]

close all of security software temporarily or uninstall them and reboot, try to launch outlook,ie ... again

 

[Zangetsu]

Can you look in your taskmanager at that moment to see, which process is causing a cpu load of 100%?

 

[sAiyAnstAr]

Hi there,

Microsoft have a pretty good tool called "Fixit". There is an option for System performance listed under "Windows". Just select the options you want and download the corresponding Fixit file. It can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/

 

[markcoronado]

It looks like I have solved the problem.
I uninstalled ESET and installed the latest version 5.0.95.0 and so far no freezing.
I watched a live streaming hockey game last night with no pauses in the video and I've been using FireFox for a few hours now with no swirling cursor or 5-10 second pauses.
I've only done this on the laptop 7 Ultimate and I thing I'll keep testing it for a week or so before I make the changes on the other 2 operating systems.