The second problem, may be that you have a browser highjacker thats sneaked
onto your system
Free online virus scan
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?productid=symhome&langid=ie&venid=sym
Free Anti virus software
www.grisoft.com
Free Firewall
www.zonelabs.com
Free Adware Blocker
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/
Free malware and spyware cleaner
http://www.safer-networking.org/
The redirection may also be caused by the way you have internet searching
set up
Go into internet explorer/tools/internet options/advanced
Scroll down to search options, depending on what you select, ie will use
your input which does not resolve to a specific site, to search with. It
will either go to the first site with the nearest match, or display a list
of sites, display the results of the search, or you can turn it off
altogether.
Does it always go to the same site, irrespective of the bad url you type in,
if so, it is probably a bit of browser redirection software.
The first problem sounds like hardware.
Have a look in the system event log for any errors just before the time of
the lockup
start/run
eventvwr.msc
Paul