See this link below to clean up the machine and shut down unnecessary startup programs and services:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-12546_102-0.html?forumID=133&threadID=237296&messageID=2518216#2518216
Hope this helps.
Grif
I recently upgraded to Vista Ultimate x32 from XP.
I started experiencing a large amount of lag at what seems to be random times. The CPU, Disk and Memory will all sit at 0% usage and it will take an hour to even shutdown properly. The CPU, Disk and Memory will be used only for a split second every minute or so which is what gets anything done.
Normally Vista runs fine, including right as I installed it. A few hours later it started this bogging down. After bearing with the lag for hours I could hear an obviously larger amount of activity from the disk and all of a sudden started working normally again. I seem to be getting this problem once a day for around 5-8 hours at a time.
Restarting during the lag doesn't help, it takes 30 min to even get to the log in screen.
I also experience a few other problems when this lag is happening:
1. VIA SATA Raid Controller (the controller for my main drive and one other) will fail to recognize the disks at times. It seems to randomly do this when the computer is in that laggy state.
2. Live CDs such as GParted get an ata2 error when attempting to unpack Linux. Along with some other errors which include the words SCSI and SATA.
I almost gave up on fixing this yesterday when all of a sudden it started working. Then later that night I was in a full screen program and when I came out of it and explorer was locked up, which ended up locking up the system. When I restarted the lag was back. The lag even seems to effect the time it takes for the Via controller to find the drives (and sometimes it doesn't find them at all). So im ussuming it has to do with a problem with my hardware, bios or controller software.
Similarly today, the lag started occurring when I restarted the machine. Restarted again, Vis Controller couldn't find the disks like usual. Tried a number of things like using system restore to a point when I wasn't getting the lag, swapping drives to the Promise IDE Controller (which didn't work, I would get a bsod as windows starts for some other reason), chkdsk all drives, repair with vista cd, and letting comp cool down in case a part is overheating.
The lag just suddenly stops (which boggles my mind). How could something thats even effecting startup stop for no apparent reason while in windows? And why is it starting in the first place.
Any help would be very greatly appreciated.

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