Computer freezes while updating/checking for updates

[hermitian]

I am running 4.6.731, but I have no idea when this problem started, it has been for about 2 months.  Around that time, I noticed several times a day my computer would just freeze for about 2-4 minutes.  The hard drive would be thrashing like crazy, everything stopped.

I eventually narrowed it down to the autoupdate feature.  I changed it so it would only update once a day, but it still did it several times a day. 

I eventually had to shut auto update off, and now only do updates whenever I remember.  Whenever I do a manual update, it is similar.  Whole computer is utilized for several minutes.

Any ideas?  Thanks.

IBM Thinkpad R31
PIII 1.13 GHz
384 MB RAM
Windows XP, SP2

[Lisandro]

Did you try to update at a non-administrator account?
Did you use the Trial version before the Home?

Will this procedure help?
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=17433.0
http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=17379.0

[hermitian]

This is in an administrator account.
I did use the trial version, now using the free version (home?).

I tried the repair. 

Doesn't seem to help.

Any other ideas?  Would uninstalling and reinstalling help?

[Lisandro]

I did use the trial version, now using the free version (home?).

Did you add the Registration key for the Home (free) version?

I tried the repair. Doesn't seem to help.

You should be connected to Internet and avast.setup must be allowed to connect the Internet into your firewall settings.

Any other ideas?  Would uninstalling and reinstalling help?

It should IF steps 1 and 2 above are right.