I went to the site as you described and through the steps you listed. What I found was that the site attempted to place close to 10 cookies on my system - all of which I deferred. The use of cookies is not unusual for automobile sites - Honda won't even let you view their page if you won't accept their cookies. In any case, I ran the whole thing without incident.
 
In any event, if your ATI drivers have no conflict with the Flash Player, do you have something running in the background that does? Could there be a firewall, anti-virus, or possibly a spybot program that is intercepting the transmission causing your computer to freeze? You could try shutting down one or another of them when you came to this site to see if you still have the problem.

Thanks Sampson. I have all of that stuff installed - Zone Labs Security (firewall and AV), and PestPatrol running live. I tried the sequence of events with all of these things closed and it DID have some effect. I was able to display and use the flash website for a short while, but then the system froze again. Would this suggest a conflict between my ATI drivers and the flash player ?
 
This is what MSINFO32 shows under Conflicts/Sharing
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller
 
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF RADEON 9800 PRO
 
Memory Address 0xD8000000-0xE7FFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
Memory Address 0xD8000000-0xE7FFFFFF RADEON 9800 PRO
 
IRQ 22 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
IRQ 22 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
 
I/O Port 0x00009000-0x00009FFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
I/O Port 0x00009000-0x00009FFF PCI SoftV92 Modem
 
Memory Address 0xEC000000-0xECFFFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
Memory Address 0xEC000000-0xECFFFFFF PCI SoftV92 Modem
 
I/O Port 0x0000B000-0x0000BFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
I/O Port 0x0000B000-0x0000BFFF RADEON 9800 PRO
 
IRQ 18 PCI SoftV92 Modem
IRQ 18 OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
 
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF RADEON 9800 PRO
 
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB PCI standard PCI-to-PCI bridge
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB RADEON 9800 PRO
 
----------------------------------------------------------------
 
Unfortunately, I'm no system or software engineer, so this stuff doesn't mean a great deal to me. Thanks for the help anyway.
 
Best.
Phil.

Another thing to try is to temporarily disable all startup apps from running. Then trying that site again.
 
Msconfig, general tab, select the "selective startup" radial button, then uncheck "Load Startup Items". Reboot, then try that site again.
 
Also, you may want to monitor your task managaer, under Processes(sort by cpu, where the highest is at the top, or by memory), to see if any program is taking a lot of resources during this operation. Do this before you mod your startup items.

What version of Java runtime environment are you using? I have found that up[censored] it will often have a remedial effect on certain calls on pages from a website as in this instance where there is a combination of html coding and shockwave/flash player.

Are you on a dial-up connection?

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone.
 
I am on a BT broadband 512k connection.
 
I uninstalled the Microsoft JRE and replaced it with the Sun Microsystems one.
 
I tried booting into Windows with the startup services disabled.
 
None of the above worked.
 
This is sooooooo frustrating.

How can I check if something in the background is conflicting with the flash player ?

Check your event viewer for errors and warnings, in Software and System.
Start->Run: eventvwr.msc
 
Does not harm to check: What does your HOSTS. file got?
"C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc"
 
It needs only contain:

Quote:127.0.0.1 localhost

 
Have you tried this,Flash Player standalone installer:
http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/killbitblock/flashplayer7_ax.exe
It only installs ActiveX control, no more.
 
Check your browser settings:
 
Firefox 1.0:
1. In your browser menu, go to Tools > Options > Web Features
2. Make sure Enable JavaScript is checked, and click OK
3. Go to Tools > Options > Downloads
4. Click Plug-Ins button > make sure SWF is checked (enabled), and click OK.
 
IE:
1. In Internet Explorer, go to Tools > Manage Add-Ons.
2. Highlight Shockwave Flash Objects by clicking on it. Click Disable, then click OK in the confirmation pop-up window.
3. Re-enable Shockwave Flash Objects. Highlight Shockwave Flash Objects, and click Enable. Click OK in the confirmation window, then click OK in the Add-Ons dialog box.

I encountered the same problem. The website I visited that freezes my system was BBC Learning Zone, learning Spanish, also a page with much flash. So, after trying up[censored] drivers, etc., etc. I changed the refresh rate of the monitor and... I just have been 30 minutes learning Spanish on that site.
The right refresh rate for my monitor I found with Everest Home edition (download free from http://www.lavalys.com/).
Hope this is also a good help for you!
 
NB. I also tried the website you mentioned. I get through. Hope you find a solution.