This has been going for a while...
At first when FFXI screen loads my character and before it forms, my computer would make this click sound then the screen freezes and I have to restart. After restarting, it wouldn't do it, only everytime I first turn on the computer. When it does a disk check after the crash, it would say symantic (norton) and playonline files being "tranducted" (sp.) and would be removed. I reinstalled those files of POL and removed Norton completely. This was a process that kept going on for about a month or two.
Now, it freezes everytime regardless of how many times I restart with that click sound happening before I freeze. Can not get into FFXI now without crashing as my character loads in-game.
Specs:
Intel Pentium 4 CPU 1.70 GHz
1.69 GHz, 1.00 GB of RAM
Windows XP
Radeon 9800 PRO
Latest Windower, using as full screen.