Intermittent Freezes

[js0873]

I’m running W2K and have consistent intermittent jerkiness problem (almost like a short-lived freeze) with the screen saver. I did some testing on this, and I've determined that the freeze I see, which lasts about 5 seconds, occurs consistently at about a 3 minute interval. This leads me to believe that it is caused by some background process that is disrupting it. I have several background processes running (as I'd suspect most folks do), and mine include ZoneAlarm, ePrompter, McAfee, VersaForward, and so on. I tried disabling most of those just to see if it would help, but it didn't, so it looks to be something else. I've also noticed that if I start the screensaver as an application, it generally runs without any disruption. I suspect that this is due to the priority difference that Windows gives a running application, vs. the one that gets assigned to screensavers. Anyway, since I wouldn't want to turn off my processes running in the background, is there a way to boost the priority of the screensaver task back to normal, like when it's activated via the desktop icon? If not, do you happen to know of any W2K processes that are activated every 3 minutes that might be something I could turn off? Or better yet, do you have any other suggestions for me?