Linux will give you much greater control and security. I wouldn't recommend it for gaming though. It takes some time to get used to, and you'll have to learn all the different commands, but in the end its worth it.

My recommendation would be to dual boot your current OS (Vista) with Ubuntu Linux. You can download Ubuntu for free, and its very intuitive. They have a very helpful user forum for any quesions that you may have as well. There is no need for partioning your hard drive before hand because Ubuntu has a built in partitioner so that you can easily dual boot with Vista.

Well what are you doing when this happens? Is the system just idling or are you using certain programs when it happens? It could possibly be a problem with the OS (i.e. corrupt system files) or the HDD could be going bad or it could be something else that would require some diagnostic work to determine.

If it is an OS problem, you could try running a chkdsk repair on it. To do this, go to a command line and type chkdsk /r and it will check the OS for missing or bad files and restore them. This may require you to boot from your OS CD and run the repair from there. The command is the same.

If this doesn't help, it may be a HDD issue, or something else. Usually in old PC's the HDD is the first thing to go bad since they have moving parts. You can run a disk diagnostic program to rule things out there.

Other than that, I'm not sure off the type of my head what else it could be...but believe me, it could be a number of things other than what I just mentioned.

Good Luck.

I'm ok with high twenties for a couple seconds of intense gameplay....this sometimes happens when there is alot going on in Crysis or Gears of War.

Games like Bioshock and STALKER play fine around 40-60 frames on my system.

There are so many to pick from, but even though this isn't specifically a PC game series, I've always been enthralled by the Legacy of Kain games. I've played since the time Blood Omen 1 came out till Defiance a couple years ago. Great series.

I also think the C&C series is a classic PC game series that everyone should play at least once.