Is it possible something is messed up with the installation of WXP? Since we are trying to deal with a hardware issue here it might be wise to eliminate the possibilities of software conflicts by dealing with a fresh installtion of WXP
By fresh installation I was thinking of JUST WXP ... no antivirus, no nothing. Fire up the clean WXP, start with the drivers then the diagnostic utils and then when you are certain stuff works.... then install the host of software