Freezing problem, Disappearing textures

Hi all. So I recently had my computer unplugged and discovered on restarting that my battery must be dead since I had to set up my bios again. But since then now when I am playing FS9 I am having a freezing issue I can't figure out. Anytime I try to bring up anything that is not FS9, for example bringing up the traffic explorer, bringing up my task manager, adjusting the volume, or even just running the mouse over an icon in the task bar to check a temperature, the entire computer will freeze for about 7 to 10 seconds and as it comes back every texture on the screen will disappear for a couple of seconds. Even using the buttons on my keyboard to change the volume will sometimes cause the freeze. Its very annoying. Also now, and I don't know if its related, but the computer will not recognize my usb keyboard and mouse until it begins starting Windows. I have to plug a keyboard into the regular keyboard port just to get into my BIOS setup. Im running Win XP SP3, 4GB RAM, Pentium 4 @ 3Ghz, Nvidia GeForce 7800 GS with 256GB of RAM, Creative X-fi soundcard. Any help is appreciated. Thanks and happy flying.