media images only partially loading

WP 3.3.2 and been having this issue on/off all weekend. Tried multiple themes

At times a media (jpg, gif) uploading, shows 100% then takes about 10 minutes to start crunching – the resulting images has the right image on the upper half of the canvas, and partial image for a few rows, then blank on bottom….

At one point I deleted all images, removed all plugins, saved permalinks, etc. Then got 2 images that would not load earlier to load, and two that loaded previous to load, and 2 that previous loaded didn’t, and so on.

Another try was to switch to twenty eleven theme – and got 5 more images loaded before the stalling.

Currently building a site that has 9 images to upload for use with the slider and posts – got three loaded and none of the others (jpg or gif formats both) will load completely. Switching themes doesn’t work now.

I have 5,000 MB available on server and am using about 100MB total. 5 MB file size – and my files are about 100kb or less each. Total of 1.5MB of images to upload.
I’ve tried all possible ways to upload via media panel, from within the post, slides, featured image, etc. At times an image will work with one of those methods, and other images will not, then another image will upload using a different method – no pattern that I can sense.

I do not know what else to check or try. Any ideas?
thanks,
Fred