XP Startup hangs intermitently

I appoligize if there's another thread similar to this one... I didn't find any that matched my situation but I may have been looking in the wrong places!

The Basics:
Machine: Lenovo X60 from 2003
OS: XP Pro on SP2

I've been having trouble with my machine for sometime now - it runs hot (which I'm going to send it in for once I have another computer set up to sustain me), I had several viruses, Explorer crashed constantly, and XP would hang/freeze on startup.

It finally decided it wasn't going to start up at all except in Safe Mode and I'm in the middle of studying for some major exams so I just took a day to reformat the HD, reinstall XP, and just start fresh. I did this 3 days ago, and I have still been having problems with XP starting. I only have the problem every once in a while (once or twice a day out of 4-6 boots/day). Basically it will do one of two things: 1 - it will hang on the initial XP start up (black screen with the XP logo and blue 'I'm working' bar), it doesn't freeze, but it also won't load XP (I let it sit for 20+ minutes with no progress) OR 2 - it will get to the blue "XP is starting up" page before you log on then hang (again, tried for maybe 10 minutes with no progress). So far it has only completely frozen on these pages once or twice, mostly it just hangs. Sometimes I can get it to start by turning it off and restarting, other times I have to go to 'Last Known good configuration,' other times I have to restart several times, there doesn't seem to be any pattern to it.

I disabled everything that was non-essential for startup. I am running the minimum programs I can, and only put back my backed-up personal files (mostly My Documents and some other settings). Since I just reformated and reinstalled I don't think it's a mantinance thing but I don't know what else to try. I am running CA Antivurs Suite 2009, I disabled that at start up and manually start real-time monitoring once I'm up and running. The only other things I can think that might apply are: I run Office XP (custom install where Word, office tools, and common files run all from my computer), I have no other anti-virus installed and cleaned the registry of the Symantec crap that installs itself, I looked through my running processes and didn't find anything too suspicious, and I'm using IE 7 (can't use IE 6 b/c of some of the applications I need to study).



Any ideas? Thanks!

 

Yeah, I was affraid it was a hardware problem since I couldn't find anyone else having a problem like this, fresh install, and I exhausted everything else I could think of. Unfortunately I have ZERO money to spend trying to work through the problem or to get a new computer. FORTUNATELY it's still coverd by Lenovo... just have to get my desktop up and running before I can send it back.
Tim: I've cleaned out what I can from the outside, but I'm not too confident on my laptop rebuilding skills, so I haven't cracked into it. From what I gather, X60's have some problems running hot but mine seems to be a combo of having an old hard drive running too much stuff (it's not as hot since I reformated) and the fan isn't running as much as it should, I mean you could practically fry an egg on it and the fan doesn't run sometimes. I'm booting so often because I go back and forth between home and school with it and it's too hot to transport it even hibernating (plus thats how I killed my last laptop... sat the bookbag down a little to roughly and it was completely dead). The boot path looks good (keep in mind, I haven't had time to keep up on my tech skills the last few years) and I have no idea what you mean by trying a different PS. Sorry! I used to have some computer skills but with school/life/being an adult kind of stuff I haven't been able to keep up so most of my knowledge is from when XP first came out.