Without knowing how you checked for virus and spyware infections (no single program finds all such parasites), it's difficult to say that virus/spyware issues are not at play here.  Since the problem does not occur in Safe Mode, it appears that something running in the background might be responsible.   Many of these background programs (but not all) load at startup and you could start by eliminating the unnecessary programs from running at startup by systematically unchecking the unnecessary programs on the msoconfig startup tab as described at the following site:

 

http://www.pacs-portal.co.uk/startup_index.htm

 

Many viruses/spwware/malware, will simply recheck the startup boxes, so this may not solve the problem, in which case you might want to consider reading the message in red at the top of the HijackThis forum - http://www.dellcommunity.com/supportforums/board?board.id=si_hijack and posting a message over there.

 

Steve

Thanks Steve

 

Problem is solved.  Turned out to be some sort of conflict with PCMService.exe.  I removed it (un-ticked the box) from Startup and all seems well.  I wonder has this been encountered by anyone else.

 

Ross