Safe Mode Problems and Reinstalled Windows

Recently, I reinstalled Windows XP Home Edition on my Dell Desktop. At first, it was going fine until I ran into a couple of problems. Drivers were not installed, I don't know why, and I was unable to connect to the internet, access hardware, etc. I fixed it by downloading the drivers on my laptop and sending it over on my usb drive. The problem is that it has gotten slower than before and shutting down is taking longer, ranging from a couple of minutes to 5 or 10 minutes. It sometimes freezes, yet whenever I check the cpu usage, it is not up at 100%, like 70% and lower. I've scanned for viruses and came up with nothing while running them in safe-mode. I've run CCleaner and defragged my hard drive. These are the programs I mostly used: CCleaner, Auslogics DeDefrag, Spy-bot, Ad-Aware, Avast, and Peer Guardian. Hopefully I haven't gone overboard . Now for my safe mode problems, which happen with the reinstalled Windows. Whenever I am in safe mode, I use my anti-virus/spy-ware programs, let them run and not touch the mouse or keyboard. However, after a certain amount of time, like 15 minutes, the keyboard and the mouse stop responding, as if the computer was frozen, yet the scans continue. I usually have to shut it down manually. Also, when I use Ad-Aware 2007, it is not able to run in safe-mode and a window comes up. The window says: "Application Error" Exception EAccessViolation in module Ad-Aware2007.exe at 001DC8E8 Access violation at address 005DC8E8 in module 'Ad-Aware2007.exe'. Read of address 00000414. Should I have run Hijackthis and post the log here? Sorry that this is very lengthy, but I guess a detailed report helps solves the problem better . Edit: I have somewhat found the problem of the slow system was because I needed to update some of my drivers. I think I've fixed the shutting down lag, butt the computer is still slow while using it.

Can anybody help? Greatly appericated.

How does it behave now if you boot to Safe Mode with Networking? Does it run better, shutdown better? If so then something is starting at boot that is causing the problem. Try the following:

First, physically disconnect from the Internet to prevent a malware infection while your Anti-virus and/or Firewall are disabled in the following steps, then do a normal boot:

Click on Start then Run, type msconfig and press Enter.
Click on the Startup tab and disable everything (I mean everything).
Do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable several items at a time till you find the culprit.

If no, click on the Services tab. Check the Hide All Microsoft Services box then click the Disable All button.
Again, do a regular boot, see if it runs normal.
If yes then use msconfig to enable services till you find the culprit.

Once you've found the culprit, uninstall it or find out how to eliminate it from your system. Simply disabling it in msconfig is a temporary fix at best.

Reconnect to the Internet when your AV and firewall are active again.

At least someone responded to my call. Thank you. I usually run Safe-Mode without Networking, but will post up the results tomorrow, gotta go sleep.

Sorry about not responding sooner, somehow missed your first post on the 21st. Good luck.

It's alright. Sorry for the late results, been busy the last few days. Well, my results are not really favorable because it seemed that they were all booting up at the same time whenever I enabled/disabled anything. Yet, whenever disabling all or enabling all, shutting down was about 1-2 minutes, not sure if it matters or not. Should I post up the start-up programs and post an Hijackthis log? It seems whatever I have doesn't want to show itself .