PC Locks Up - Windows 7

I actually resolved this by updating my driver for my network card.

"If it's locking up like clockwork in the same time period - no matter what you do (try doing other things) then you might have a hardware problem. If the hard drive checks out fine, take a peek inside the case and make sure you have no:

Blown or bulging capacitors Pics of bad caps here - right side of screen
Heatsinks that have popped off or fans that are not spinning - especially on the CPU itself, or any fans directly on the motherboard."

"As well as Process Explorer, you could try Process Monitor (also from Sysinternals) which will tell you what files have been accessed during the 60 seconds. You will get an lot of files accessed, but there are also summaries (under tools) which should show what process are performing the most disk-accesses and also which files/directories are being hit.

You also need to monitor memory usage. If you are running very low in memory you might be swapping out to disk when switching between tabs/windows. (This could tie in with it starting when you moved from Xp to Visa which would require more memory, especially if aero is enabled)

Also, it it happens mainly during browsing, you could try another browser to see if that helps. If it does, it would probably rule out network errors, but does not necessary prove that it the browser that caused the problem ad it might avoid the problem because the current browser has an addon that is causing problems or because the files it uses are stored on a failing part of the disk etc.

There are some utilities that will display the Smart diagnostics which are present in most drives now, for example ActiveSmart"

I actually resolved this by updating my driver for my network card.

"Have you tried disabling some visual effects? Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings in the left > Advanced tab > Settings under Performance.

I would recommend disabling all and try, afterwards enable one by one and check..."