Windows XP - freeze/hang issues

[Splatterpunk]

No, reboot is NOT possible until the battery drains. I was afraid to simply pop the battery out, and didn't know whether that was a good idea or not.

you can pop the battery out, it wont hurt the battery. Doing it like this for a while will probably cause something on your mainboard to go nutty though.

Are you sure it's internet related? Does it lockup when you're NOT online?

It sounds to me like something is running and causing you to lockup - it could be a shitty OS install, it could be spyware, it could be a faulty drive. Call Dell, have them replace the whole machine for you.

Now that you explained it with more detail than "I dont have wireless, I think it's my dialup", you got a better answer.

Thanks, Goatweed. Yes, it froze once while not online. We were running an imaging program.

I should have included more detail... it's frustrating; sorry, I didn't think of it. I didn't want to make anything worse or damage anything.

Thanks, Goaty.

[Keyser Soze]

were you running any file sharing programs?

[Goatweed]

We were running an imaging program.

it's possible the program was either installed incorrectly, or you might need more RAM - imaging apps eat up a lot of memory, so if you're low it could lock up.