Why does Gnome freeze on me?

[S A Jarrett-Sprague <sjarrettsprague waitrose com>]

I have never had any success with Gnome and Sawfish. I have tried it on 
two computers, Redhat 7.0, 7.1 and Ximian Gnome.

1. Gnome 1.2 and Gnome 1.4 desktop will freeze at the slightest 
opportunity freeze. E.g. Menus won't work e.g programs refuse to close 
etc. The only solution I have found is to kill X windows. Can the choice 
of theme affect performance?

2. CD and MP3 playing just stops for no reason.

Now I have been told that 'buggy' hardware is the cause of problem 2, 
however, KDE always works fine, stable and no sound problems.

My question is how can I track down what is at fault. Advice would be 
much appreciated as it would be nice to have a choice of desktop to use.