I did format in the end

all went pearshaped anyway, so uninstalled bad evil sp2 , went back to 1a

Also, when my graphics drivers are not installed (or running in safe mode), the games and timers run correctly, so most likely is driver/nvidia related

not bothered about them security updates from microsoft, good ol Zone alarm does the trick usually (but now thats gone, and kaspersky kicks ass) The next OS I get will be in atleast another 2 years, prob a later form of Vista