Starfinder

I'm running SP2. I keep up to date with hotfixes, I usually grab them as soon as they're out. It's been happening to varying degrees (on all counts) for a few months now.

Hi folks, new here... Couple quirks I haven't been able to find a solution to whatsoever that I thought I'd ask about here. I'm running Win 2000 Pro on a Hewlett-Packard 8580C, Intel P3 500, 128MB of RAM, 20 gb HDD, Pioneer IDE DVD-ROM and Sony/HP 8100+ CD-RW. As far as I know, these problems are unrelated, but here goes... 1) After my computer has been up for a while (12hrs+ generally, I haven't done specific tests, but that's a pretty good ballpark figure) some install packages (SETUP.EXEs) will not open. They load, halfway, and then just hang in the process list until I kill them. I have to reboot for them to work (and it is quite annoying to have to reboot to set something up, then reboot again to have it work). Anyone have any clue why this is, and if so, how to fix it? 2) Some of my programs spontaneously crash when they didn't before; the 'bugtoaster' program I have reports it as an access violation with wsock32.dll. Does that mean I should replace that library? Or is it perhaps something else? It's only some programs that do this, so I'm guessing they all have something in common just by logical deduction... could it be bad RAM? Or most likely a software problem? 3) For some bizarre reason, my volume gets jacked up VERY high when I shut down and start up Windows. I have a Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! MP3, and I've searched their knowledge base and the entire web, plus fiddled with mixer settings and reinstalled drivers several times, to no avail. Anyone else experience this, and if so, know how to tweak it so that start up sounds don't blast me out of my chair? 4) Lastly (another sound prob), my computer will "freeze up" for a brief moment sometimes when about to play a wave sound. It didn't do this before installing the SB Live and taking out the OEM card (my machine shipped with Win98, I upgraded to NT5 later) because it was incompatible with NT. I've tried adjusting hardware acceleration to no avail; it's not a huge deal, but it's especially annoying when writing to a CD-R because the freezeup can disrupt the streaming and leave me with a coaster. If anyone can help this, I'd appreciate it. I know this is lengthy, but these have been nagging at me for a while... if anyone can help, you'll have my eternal gratitude. Thanks.