Screen jerks, cursor becomes inactive

Question

I have a Dell Dimension 3000, Celerson processor, with E153FP monitor, running Windows XP with SP2 - purchased five months ago. Problem: While I am keying in or editing, the image on the screen jerks - that is, moves. If I was keying at the time it happened, my keystrokes go somewhere else. Then nothing works, a bong sounds, and the cursor becomes inactive. The title bar at the top turns from dark blue to pale blue. However, at the bottom of the screen, where the open applications are shown, the app that I am in remains dark blue. I have to click in the screen to reactivate the cursor and to be able to continue keying or editing. This happens every few minutes, and it happens in all applications (Word, Excel, on the internet, and while writing this message it has happened 3 times so far). I believe that this problem started after I installed SP2 about a month ago. Any help will be very much appreciated. I am a reasonably intelligent novice and need technical things spelled out. Thanks!

msil217 · Answer

You should check your event viewer.

Or, open help and support, tools---Advanced system configuration--view the error log.

Any errors listed?

Sounds like something is stealing the focus, an application, spyware, a vius, etc.

That "Bong" might be the "Critical stop" sound.

I hope this helps.

Windows General

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