Thanks Frank... I don't want to jinx myself, but I ended up calling Dell Tech Service and it was so cool, as they took control of my laptop while I was on the phone w/them. They checked everything, unloaded a bunch of carp I had on there, ran scans, basically cleaned it all out and refurbished it.

Between two phone calls, they worked on it for 2 hrs and 20 mins. BUT, the good news is that it's better.

I was getting so frustrated b/c it was running so slow, and since we have high speed internet, I was about to throw the whole thing out the window.

*this looooong winter has made me crabby*

I will save the info and suggestions you all gave me tho....as I appreciate the help.