Intermittent System Pauses - What's Causing This?

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Process File: notifyalert or notifyalert.exe
Process Name: Dell Notifier
Description: notifyalert.exe is a process belonging to Dell support which notifies you regarding critical updates from Dell whenever applicable. This is a non-essential process. Disabling or enabling this is down to user preference.
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Try to disable it.

Did you scan for spyware/viruses lately?
Also, please check the Event Viewer (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer) for possible errors/events that occurred during system stops (each event has a time stamp).

The behavior you describe may be caused by number of thing: Hardware malfunction, Indexing, System Restore, Windows/other programs automatic updates, synchronization, malicious software, etc.

I was able to disable it from the processes list, but I couldn't find it in my startup programs (msconfig). Also, even after disabling it from the running processes, the problem was still there.

I scanned for spyware last night, and I also scanned for viruses. Both scans came up negative. However, I did look in the Event Viewer, as you suggested right now, and I couldn't quite understand what everything meant. Here is one error message, however, which is logged at about the time I started noticing the problem:

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Hanging application wiaacmgr.exe, version 5.1.2600.2180, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang address 0x00000000.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
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When I clicked on the link, it took me to this message:

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Details
Product: Windows Operating System
ID: 1002
Source: Application Hang
Version: 5.2
Symbolic Name: ER_HANG_LOG
Message: Hanging application %1, version %2, hang module %3, version %4, hang address 0x%5.

Explanation
The indicated program stopped responding. The message contains details on which program and module stopped responding. A matching event with EventID 1001 might also appear in the event log. This matching event displays information about the specific error that occurred.


User Action
No user action is required.
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Here is the other error message that was logged, many times:

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Unable to open the Server service. Server performance data will not be returned. Error code returned is in data DWORD 0.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
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wiaacmgr.exe is the Windows Picture Acquisition Wizard
And the error may indicate a problem with scanners and digital cameras (via USB, SCSI, and IEEE 1394).

According to the log, the hanging application occured at about 8:00 PM on Sunday, which was the day before this problem surfaced. However, there are no errors logged for each 'pause.' The other errors were random throughout the day (they happened 5 times today, according to the log).

You said it could be faulty hardware - what kind?

Based on time stamps of the first error (Hanging application wiaacmgr.exe...) would you say that they were logged at the times of the computer halts?

That makes sense - that day I had a lot of trouble with my scanner. But, do you think that could be the cause of the problem? It just seems strange that this problem just showed up when I haven't done anything new (to my knowledge) to the system.

Most likely that's not "it"...

If the stops happen (literally) every 5 minutes, try to:

1. Unplug all peripherals (except monitor, keyboard and mouse) and test with basic applications (Word, e-mail, etc.) for 10 – 15 minutes.
2. Restart in Safe Mode and test with basic applications for 10 – 15 minutes.

Thank you all for your help, but I was able to figure out what was causing it myself (quite by accident!). I noticed that during one of the pauses, that my wireless card would flash, which made me suspect that perhaps the reason it was 'hanging' every five minutes was because the wireless card was searching for networks in range (I'm currently connected to the net by a physical cord). I then disabled the wireless card, and there were no more pauses.

Again, thank you all for your help - I really appreciated it!

Glad you worked it out! And thanks for posting back.

P.S. I did recommend unplugging all peripherals ... :)