I purchased a refurbished IBM Think Centre SS1 8171 Desktop PC. I use Windows XP Professional as my OS. For about the last few months, I have been having very frequent problems daily with inability to pull up programs along with occasional video freezing. What happens with almost every use is that after I pull up just a few files (sometimes just one, or even none) it won’t open because the program won’t initiate. If I try to restart or shut down to reboot, even that won’t initiate. I’m always forced to cut the power via surge suppressor switch then turn it right back on in order to reboot; even to shut the system down properly. I do that on a regular basis more than once, daily. To add, I also get frequent messages while I’m on line that whatever browser I’m using has “encountered a problem”, apologizing for the inconvenience and prompts me to send an error report, and then I get disconnected. I do that on a regular basis, as well. I ran antivirus scans, but no virus was found. I did registry scans, and got different amounts of registry errors ranging from 700 to almost 5,000. I know these are problems that are not unique to my computer. What I would like to know is if these problems are the result of a virus, and if so, what would work best to rectify these problems. Can someone please point me in the right direction?Remember - This is a public forum so never post private information such as email or phone numbers!Ideas:Programs you are having problems with Error messages Recent changes you made to your computer What you have already tried to fix the problem 2 people got this answerI do too