Teatimer.exe will bounce around, but when it is at its lowest point mem usage is 27,072k and cpu is 02. I need a little more clarification on system protector. Is this the one where you go to Tools.... Resident... and check the "Resident "TeaTimer" (Protection of over-all system settings) active." ? If so, when I uncheck this box, my performance improves significantly. It goes from over 4 minutes boot up, down to 1 minute and 27 seconds. The time to open and navigate various applications also improves. The boot up time stays stable no matter how many times I reboot. As soon as I enable it, the boot up time gets slower and then after a couple of reboots, returns to over 4 minutes.