Weird assortment of lockups and such

Ugh, I thought the days of having to completely reinstall Windows were going to be over with Windows 7, but maybe not. I've got a problem I just can't solve.

Symptoms:
- IE9 feezes after a while, have to force closed.
- Eudora E-mail (obsolete but I like it) stops responding, stays on screen even after attempt to force closed.
- VLC player sometimes stays in memory after closing normally, have to force closed with task manager before using again.
- Occasionally IE9 starts responding incorrectly to mouse input, such as zooming in and out instead of scrolling up and down with mouse wheel, or highlighting a block of text instead of following a link with a mouse click.
- Shutdown after these events can take several (meaning 3, 4, even 10 ) minutes.
- Usually everything works OK for a while after restart but then once one of these symptons shows up again, then it all goes to hell.

What I've tried:
- Scanned with multiple virus scanners. All show it's clean.
- Tried running with antivirus uninstalled altogether in case it was interfering. No help.
- Reset IE9, disabled all add-ons.
- Checked performance details in Event Log. Found critical shutdown and startup delays logged but no useful info on why.
- Cleared IE cache and overflow, defragged, cleared temp files.
- Ran Memtest86+ overnight, no errors found
- Removed half the RAM, then the other half. Errors persist.
- Ran CCleaner to view bad registry entries, nothing obvious turned up.
- Performed Eudora troubleshooting routine to remove any corrupted spooling or files, no change.

Any other ideas before I throw my hands in the air, wipe the drive and spend a week reinstalling all my programs? By the way this is an AMD Phenom X3 CPU on an Asus socket AM2+ MB with 8GB DDR2 RAM, onboard video, everything running stock, never overclocked. The system is not used for gaming. It's served me well for quite a while and I can't point to any recent changes I've made that could have set this off.

Well for one thing even if you believe you are in a full install situation there is something windows 7 can do that the previous versions didn't.
It's called a repair install, and it resets windows to defaults but keeps your programs and files.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html

Before taking that step there's still quite a few things we can try.
For starters follow the instructions here.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

Also if you don't mind taking a minute to do so, if you could follow the instructions here.
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html
It will provide us with a copy of your system error log to look over which might spawn some more productive ideas than wild guesses based on symptoms.
(I realize you haven't had a bsod but that method is the easiest way to get us a copy of the system logs. )
You can simply zip and attach the files here using the paperclip icon above the box.

SFC /scannow produced the following result:
Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

I have attached the zip file containing BSOD dump and System Health Report.

As luck would have it I experienced a BSOD and failed startup on my last reboot, so the logs should reflect that.

If we can't find any obvious problems in the logs then i'm wondering if it's a hardware issue. It's behaving a little like an overheated CPU but my hardware status monitor is only reporting 42C temperature. I can still clean and apply new thermal paste if signs continue to point to that.

System specs are in my profile, and copied below. Note I was only running with 4GB RAM for the test as the other 4GB had been removed for troubleshooting (process of elimination).

Windows 7 Professional x64 (Retail)
AMD Phenom II X3 720
Asus M3A78-EM
4GB Patriot 800MHz DDR2 4-4-4-12 (as tested)
ATI 3200 (onboard)
Realtek onboard & M-Audio Delta 66
Dell 2209WA
WD5000AAKS (2, non-RAID), WD Green 1.5TB PSU
Antec 400W PSU
Arctic Cooling CPU cooler

Thanks!

The only thing I see that's consistent is the Verizon ihamessenger service is hanging ... pretty much constantly.

Will your internet work without that service?
If so I would look into disabling it.

I already removed it a day or two ago and it didn't solve the problem.

This might have been a heat issue after all. After all the frustration of trying to troubleshoot Windows, I blew the dust out of the CPU heatsink fins with a can of compressed air and it's now running much cooler. I haven't experienced any more lockups since then (although I still think it takes a little too long to shut down).

If it starts acting up again I'll come back and update the thread. Otherwise thanks very much for the help.