System Quits Responding-Swap Issue Or What?

[Leonard Chatagnier <lenc5570@sbcglobal.net>]

Runing unstable on a Dell dimensions XPS T450 with 128
Mb Ram and 384 Mb Swap Partition on a 13 Gb HD. I run
KDE with usually 4 or 5 session Konsole windows open
and the Mozilla browser and perhaps an embedded modia
player open-nothing else. Before a few minutes pass(<
5 min.), the HD starts making noise, reading and
writing, then the mouse becomes unresponsive(clicking
anything wont respond for several minutes) and may
even disappear(pointer) for a minute of so. After
several minutes pass(maybe 15-20 min.) the system
begins to respond normally again after the HD slows
down it's read/write activity. During the total time
this phenomena is occurring, the system is totally
useless. Can't even shut it down.  I don't know if
this is even a swap issue or what to do about it or
whether it may be a virus infection or some setup
issue. It is totally unacceptable and I could use some
serious help in pinning it down and getting it fixed. 
Please copy my email address as I'm not subscribed. 
Any help most appreciated.
Thanks,


Leonard Chatagnier
lenc5570@sbcglobal.net