Thank you for responding!
Further information since you mentioned RAM as a potential issue, here's further info:
You said my system is maxed out @ 4GM of RAM but I only have 2 installed. I have tried to use a USB flash drive in Readyboost mode. For this option, under drive properties, it allows you to pick the space to use for Readyboost, I picked the max, which was about 4GB. Do you know if Readyboost feature works well to supplement installed RAM? I might try to add the other 2GB of RAM if you think it is most likely a memory issue.
thanks!
steve