Pavilion problems: freezing, wrong resolution

This new HP Pavilion has two problems that may or may not be
related to each other:

1. Intermittently, the display freezes for 30 seconds. Moving
the mouse does not cause the cursor to move. The desktop clock
(an image of a wall clock with a second hand) stops
changing. After 30 seconds, the clock skips ahead by 30
seconds (i.e., catches up) and behavior returns to normal.
There have been some indications that at least some keystrokes
are buffered during the freeze. The frequency of these
freezes varies a lot: sometimes it will happen four times in
15 minutes, but sometimes it doesn't happen for hours.

2. The resolution of the display will not stay set to 1680 x 1050.
When rebooted, the resolution tends to come up as something
else: often 1024 x 768, but sometimes other resolutions. We
have re-installed the drivers for the display adapter, and
changed the settings manually in the Systems Configuration
Utility ("msconfig"). Downloaded a new nVidia graphics driver.
At HP's suggestion, ran the "HP Adjustment Pattern" utility.
At HP's suggestion, we updated the BIOS.

HP's online technical support has wound down to the point of
shooting in the dark: reload this, reload that, try it again
with your fingers crossed; you know the drill.

Has anybody seen problems like these? Any suggestions?

Configuration information:

RP829AV#ABA HP Pavilion D4790Y PC
RP834AV Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate
RT662AV Intel Core 2 Duo Proc E6700 2.66GHz
EX474AV 256 MB NVIDIA GEFORCE 7500LE
EW183AV 4GB DDR2-667MHz Dual Channel SDRAM
RE524AV 250 GB RAID1 (2x250GB SATA HDDS)
ER122AV 802.11B/G Wireless LAN PCI card
RR762AV ATSC/NTSC TV tuner with PVR, FM tuner, remote
RP842AV Norton Internet Security

Display: HPw22

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On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 20:00:44 -0000, Peter Pearson wrote:
[snip]
> 1. Intermittently, the display freezes for 30 seconds. Moving
> the mouse does not cause the cursor to move. The desktop clock
> (an image of a wall clock with a second hand) stops
> changing. After 30 seconds, the clock skips ahead by 30
> seconds (i.e., catches up) and behavior returns to normal.
> There have been some indications that at least some keystrokes
> are buffered during the freeze. The frequency of these
> freezes varies a lot: sometimes it will happen four times in
> 15 minutes, but sometimes it doesn't happen for hours.

The problem appears to have been solved. The solution was
found on a Microsoft site, not an HP site, and consisted of
moving the cable of one of the DVD drives so that the two
DVD drives were plugged into the two highest-numbered SATA
ports on the motherboard.

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