Ok, This is a clients system so I don't have this with me and won't be working on it again till friday. The system is a one month old Dell, has no virus and is spyware free. Everything in the "startup Tab" is disabled and there is nothing in the "startup folder" The issue does not persist 100% of the time when the system is booted, here is the issue. When the issue does occur and this happens right away, I can tell when it is going to be an issue because the "network icon" takes forever to appear in the "system tray", anyhow after it does load and I do a Ctrl-Alt-Del go to Task Manager and click the "Processes Tab" the CPU usage is at 100% and the culprit under "Image Name" is "System" use anywhere from 90 to 100 CPU Cycles. Now one can not End Process on "System" this is a core componet to XP. The system will run but is very slow and no matter how long you wait, it stays at 100%. Now sometimes you can start up the system, loads fine and runs at it should. The only thing that concerns me though when it does run fine is that the CPU Usage spikes between 15 to 30 percent and does not fall below 15% if you are still reading this the Memory usage is fine and is not an issue. Push comes to shove I will format the system and reload XP but because I'm not going back out to this clients house till Friday I thought I would give it awhirl here so have fun if ya like. KTTD P.S I have not ruled out hardware as the problem.

No expert, just adding 2 cents. Seems to me that if to disable Smtray in the Startup results in no System Tray. Thus maybe System process works harder (higher CPU usage) to do something with the Tray that is not there. Sign, All Wet.

It should still be under warranty with Dell. Not that I recommend their tech support, but they will send someone out for a hardware problem. I was told they "don't support the OS" after the first 30 days. Sounds like weird problem and I really don't have any ideas except if it is a hardware problem, Dell should take care of it.

Kevin: I had a similar problem about two months ago on an Epox 8KHA+ mobo. After a month of fighting it, I found that I didn't have any bad Ram but the first ram slot on the mobo was intermitent. The icon wasn't "network" but my "unplug and eject USB hardware" icon. If I rebooted with ram DDR2100 only in slot 2 & 3, the problem went away. Have since replaced with Asus A7V8X. This may not even be close to your problem, but was mine.

Note : Nothing in this reply will solve the problem.. Just having 'fun' with this issue. Probably already know this but [i know you already know this :)].. If your company has a contract with this client.. Dont! tell them Dell needs to solve the problem! Our clients have contracts with dell, directv, isp's, electricians, cabinet makers etc. We deal with the other tech support companies directly so the client doesnt have to. If dell was to solve the problem.. what do they need you for? :)

You're right of course Kevin but a lot of us aren't in the industry for profit. As an end user who has to deal on a daily basis with a central helpdesk(Which by the way is in a city over 2000km away from any of the offices it supports) there are good and bad aspect to having another layer of interaction between supplier and user. Good that the helpdesk cops the cursewords and then deals calmly and professionally with supplier. Bad that sometimes the supplier should be cursed out and isn't. As for the problem at hand if it turns out to be a hardware issue(and it sounds like it) then make sure Dell to fixes it. Take the kudos yourself for getting the job done but make sure the true culprit fulfils their obligations.

Try the reload; Dell would have you/customer do that anyway. Parts are going to come from Dell so don't waste too much time troubleshooting because they will have you do it again when you have them on the phone. If you are a DCSE they will send parts direct to you; otherwise they will dispatch a service provider to install the parts.