24" iMac pauses when running

I have a 24" iMac 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB of RAM running Mac OS X 10.6.5 and when I'm running a movie in VLC player, music in iTunes, etc, it will pause for approx 2-10 seconds and then resume running.
Any thought of what it may be? Any hints on where to start looking for the problem? I've run everything in Disk Utility to check the disk thinking the hard drive was failing...
Help?

Hi Scott,
I'm interested to know where you managed to obtain ASD from - as it is not available to the general public...
Anyhow.  The fact that your Mac is crashing when any OS is run indicates a hardware issue.  My first sugestion would be to boot the mac into target disk mode, and check the panic logs located in /Library/logs.  This may give you a starting point as to the hardware component causing the crash.
Secondly, I sugest swapping out the RAM modules and attempting to boot again.  In many cases RAM can die suddenly and leave you in this sort of situation.
Failing that the machine will need to come apart for further isolation troubleshooting.  If your a keen DIYer you can do this but I would highly recommend taking it to your nearest Apple store or AASP.
HTH

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