512MB RAM is the minimum XP needs to run smoothly. And in the computer world, "minimum" never, ever meets my expectations or patience level. I'd say the same for your processor. How much anti-virus and spy ware do you have? Try for only ONE anti virus and ONE anti spyware program. Otherwise they all conflict and screw you and your computer up the beeeehind. Plus they all require more memory. The only spyware program you really need is Spybot-SD.

What happens when you go into safemode? Go into safe mode, open up start menu, go to run, and type in "msconfig" without the quotes. There's a tab up top that says "Startup," these are all the programs your computer runs when it's starting windows. Disable them all, boot into normal mode and sort it out from there.

Also a hard drive defragmentation will help a lot.

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1985 CA 300D Turbo , 213K mi