sluggish on startup, NOT LOGIN, NOT CRASH, weird

hi! i'm still searching the forums for an answer, but...

this is what happens:
On startup, the program is very sluggish. It does not crash, I even successfully logged on (where it crashed), but there is at least a five second lag between my clicks and the response. If I open up the options to change video settings, it becomes frozen on the general settings tab.
task manager reports CPU is at %100 utilization
it gets hot! (i know i read some stuff about heat problems on here, but
ive never had a problem before...)

what i'm using:
dell latitude d800, which has:
nvidia geforce4200 go
640 mb of ram
1.6 Ghz pentium M

what i've already done:
reinstalled nvidia driver
reinstalled SL
nuked all my cache and spyware.
installed directx9.c

i haven't been able to find this problem on the forum yet. i think i sent a crash log, is it possible to get feedback on it?

thanks for help. I really want to contribute to the SL community.

Could I ask what prefferences you have switched on..

I'd try switching off shadows and local lighting if you have them on and see if you notice a difference..