Help with Weird Pauses

[A_Gonzales_3]

Recently, my laptop has been pausing at regular intervals of about 30 secs - 30 secs pause, 30 secs normal "behavior". I tried scanning the computer with antivirus software (AVG) but I don't get any viruses or any alerts. I also tried SystemCare and some other programs but the system is clean. Running Winamp results in the aforementioned pauses, but when I tried running the same program in the background, say, when I'm playing Warcraft 3, it played fine. Same goes for Office Word, I have to run a game like Jewel Quest or Warcraft 3 and alt-tab out just keep Office Word from pausing.

Any tips/help/workaround would be greatly appreciated.

 

[raybay]

Laptop brand and model, age of laptop. hard drive, memory installed... Antivirus and antispyware used?
Has this behavior always been there or did it start happening recently...

 

[A_Gonzales_3]

NEO Empriva (Approx. 1 1/2 year old)
Intel Core 2 CPU T5200 @ 1.6 GHZ
120 GB Hard drive, 2 GB RAM

Windows XP
AVG anti virus (Free)

It started about 2-3 weeks ago. I could reinstall Windows XP but I would have to reinstall all of my games and programs and that would be a bit too much work for me. I'm looking for another way to get it back to normal.

 

[raybay]

Even if just to rule out possibilities, I would remove AVG and use Avast or Avira free versions instead, along with SuperAntiSpyware, and Malwarebytes. These will rule out many of the possible causes by infestation.

And of course, defragment the drive.

You didn't mention the manufacturer of the hard drive, but every manufacturer EXCEPT Toshiba has a hard drive fitness test on their website... Fast and gives assurance the problem is not the hard drive... although all of the tests I know of are only 92 percent accurate.