Wow an Athlon XP 2000+. OK to get back to diagnosing do you have to reset when you have nothing open, or is it just when you are running apps? If it is just when you are running apps, what specific user openned apps are you usually using together like lets say MS WORD and a Virus Scan, that scans in the background, etc?

Also if you are running 3D intensive apps or game like apps. with other programs running also, like for instance the internet if you have dial up or MS WORD that would be the cause. I know this cause I have a Pentium 4 2.0 GHz (not to proud of it) and at lan parties I can only have one game open and nothing else or my computer will start to lag and eventually lock up.

Finally, to get rid of that pesky prompt MSCONFIG gives you at startup click that box in the prompt. I realize microsoft makes it sound bad if you tell it to get rid of the screen but really it does nothing. If you need to change anything at startup just go back into msconfig.