emacs freezes on XP SP2

[Anthony Dardis]

Dear help-gnu-emacs,

Machine: IBM Thinkpad 600x, 10g, 192mb, 500mhz
OS (this one): Windows XP, Service Pack 2 just installed
emacs from emacs-21.3-fullbin-i386.tar.gz

Problem: I start a file (with a .txt extension) and after about a minute 
emacs freezes, cursor won't move, when I minimize and maximize the emacs 
window the contents of the window are not repainted, Windows Task Manager 
shows emacs using 90% of cpu resources. emacs never comes back and must be 
killed using Windows Task Manager.

(The machine used to run emacs 21.1 just fine under W98, and the machine 
also runs Gnu/Linux RedHat 7.2 without problem for 2 years.)

Thanks,
Tony Dardis