THe following should be removed using HiJackthis!
O4 - HKLM\..\Run: [AlcxMonitor] ALCXMNTR.EXE
The "wild tangent" is a big problem ands needs to be fixed.I don't know if you'd be interested in these, but after i did the scans you recommended i did a scan with spybot search and destroy and these are what is in the log folder, it fixed 13 things. (this was before the fixes with the hijack this and the explorer)
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {FDD3B846-8D59-4ffb-8758-209B6AD74ACC} - (no file)
O2 - BHO: WormRadar.com IESiteBlocker.NavFilter - {3CA2F312-6F6E-4B53-A66E-4E65E497C8C0} - (no file)
Also, is there anything i can do about periodic lag spikes that kills anything that is running at the time,