Norton/ Acoustic Edge Problems

[JMan]

Yesterday I tried to install some updates for Systemworks 2002 and it went through fine, but when it finished it prompted me to restart I was in the middle of something so I ctrl-alt-del it instead of pressing OK to reboot. Apparently that messed me up. It rebooted anyway, and when Windows came back, everything went in super slow motion. My mouse was jittery and unresponsive and everything I did took about 50x longer to do than normal. I tried a Windows XP system restore, but that didn't seem to help. I finally uninstalled Systemworks, which took about an hour to do, and the slowness of everything seemed to go away.
However, I also uninstalled the drivers to my Philips Acoustic Edge because I have had a problem with it, where every few restarts the sound goes crazy and puts out click click click sounds and requires a driver reinstall to fix it. When I rebooted to reinstall the drivers, it took around 30 minutes to get into Windows. I'm afraid to reboot again. Also, while the installation of the sound card driver went fine, the gameport (joystick/gamepad) driver has been searching/working for over 9 hours to no avail. I can't click cancel either, as it does not respond to my inputs.
I really could use some help here. I guess this might be a way to get my dad to let me upgrade this computer, but I'm not sure that would work. Specs (if it matters):
Asus P3V4X
P3 700E
256 MB RAM
Philips Acoustic Edge
Windows XP Home

Thanks for any help

JMan

[dadx2mj]

I would try running system file checker. It will fix or eliminate any problems with XP itself. To do it open a command prompt and type "sfc /scannow" without the quotes. I was having similar problems on my kids system which has same mobo has yours and it fixed them for me. It will ask you to for the XP CD so have it handy. Good Luck

Edit: I told you wrong. Start\Run then in the open dialog box type sfc /scannow