:realmad:
Well - after spending close to a 100 hours making this piece of junk work, I returned it.
I don't like giving up especially on tech stuff - but my 3500 just wouldn't work. I tried everything - some of it is documented in the XP CD thread.
The hardware was faulty and Averatec support just sucks.
I never call support so when I finally did, they were just plain unhelpful. As if they had never heard that they had multiple problems with this model !

THE PROBLEM:
The laptop would reach 100% CPU randomly (not only when it was hot or anything) - no particular process - sometimes IE, sometimes notepad (poor lil notepad) - sometime winlogon.exe . My mouse moved one step every 10 seconds - navigation was slow as you can imagine.
Shutdown would take 10-15 minutes at the pegged CPU.

I tried every software combination including a raw XP SP2 install - no luck.

The problems actually started the day I got the laptop - it took me 4 hours to complete the initial XP install - I had no idea what was going on and didnt want to stop the process for fear of messing it up. I guess the CPU must have been pegged all that time but I couldnt find out due to the lack of task manager during that process.
I should have returned it then, but when I rebooted after install everyting was fine. I thought it was a freak thing (there never really is one - now I know).
then every few minutes it would go 100% CPU - sometimes post hibernation, sometimes on cold boot after been off for a day.

Once I turned it on - nothing - no battery - plugged it in and saw the battery was totally discharged and would not charge. tried taking it out many times no luck. Turned off - called support - guy told me send me the battery and we will replace. Told him it may not be the battery - it is too new, must be the charging mechanism - no just send us the battery !!
I knew what was gonna happen - send battery - pay shipping - get battery back in 3-4 weeks and problem is with the charging contact or something.
I saved myself the trouble - played around with the battery - in and out a few times and viola - it started charging !

THE SOLUTION:
The problems never stopped. I was past my return time at the local store but i still gave it a try - 30 minutes later walked out with a (more expensive but great) Toshiba Satellite R15 S822.

I am very happy so far with it - bigger screen - less noisy, better pen input, loooooonger battery life - close to 4 hours !!

The c3500 like most first gen products needs to grow up to a c4000 - maybe then I will buy an averatec again - till then no more