Quote: "although my regular BSODs tell me my graphics card is the cause of all my troubles (cough *geforce 2 mx 400*)."
90% of Hardware Problems in Windows XP are down to the Motherboard and/or System Ram.
It might seem crazy but believe me, I've had so many problems with Windows XP recently.. yet could never figure out why there was one System I have which runs it perfectly stable. Swapped the Ram out, even though Linux told me it was find.. and blam! Ever peice of hardware which I thought was breaking down suddenly works 100% and WindowsXP is perfectly stable on here too.
As for the Virus, use the Symantec website's Virus Checker. It'll find any virus you have on your system.
Unfortunately due to registration issues I'm stuck with PC-Cillin', can't wait until I get this Norton stuff sorted. That said I thought I had a virus, just turns out the ram doesn't work fast enough for my CPU and FSB.. so it keeps slowing the system down and Windows sees it as a limitation so uses the PageFile which kicks in the Hard Disk; which oddly seems to be running slow.