andyson:
^^^^And that's good advice that's been around here quite a while. Although counting to 6 is IMO a bit excessive. 3 seconds works for me. And it all depends on how fast your PC runs. It's hard for me to hold the power at 97.5% exactly for longer than a few seconds anyway. You might try a shorter interval just for kicks.
I should try the 3 second rule, and give it a whirl. As usual computers are finicky beasts, and software installed makes it interesting challenge.
I have even used a process monitor to check for abnormalities, (ie it list all the dll's associated with a given process, or program).
Secondly, there are no programs that start when my computer boots.
I only turn on windows update if I need to check for them. Secondly, I have flash updates set to manual, no auto updates. Lastly, the player update flash service is not installed to begin with, as well as the flashplayerupdate.exe has been removed as well.