iMac freezing fixes (troubleshooting?)

I have an iMac FP superdrive that has frankly been freezing periodically and can not determine where to go in terms of troubleshooting the problem.

512 meg Ram installed by Apple running OS X10.2 whatever (current)

I have zapped the PRAM

unplugged all external hardware

run the permissions checking utility etc..

Finally reloaded the OS with Panther(10.3.7) and updated the all the latest updates as of 12/20/04

It still freezes randomly with the message that the computer has to be reset by holding power button etc...

FRUSTRATING! The iBook with the same setup never does this

Any advise is appreciated.....

Have you recently installed any new hardware or software, or any new sticks of ram?

Macman said:

Have you recently installed any new hardware or software, or any new sticks of ram?

Click to expand...

No new hardware or new ram.
I have the usual stuff: LaCie ext firewire HD, scanner, printer, subw, DV cam, flash mem which are periodically used.

The iMac will seem to freeze without any of these installed and sometimes with one or the other in use. I thought I had some corrupted file somewhere. So I finally did the clean install (reformat and install). It even froze a couple of times while downloading the Panther update.

I'm at a loss....