Sorry PAE.
I've been up all night so I'm like very tired right now and can't think anymore....

The new install of windows works perfectly. No slowdowns and no PAE And CPU reported currently as 3.6 ghz (OC).

I'm back at the old install for the moment, trying to figure out WHAT exactly is broken. Needless to say, I wont be reinstalling windows again if I break the 'old' installation somehow; I'll just use the new one then copy the files over.

I STILL want to know exactly what is causing this though...but it seems no one here has ever encountered such a problem, on these forums or elsewhere....once again I'm on my own =(

I will ask again:
Has everyone else gone from dual core to Quad effortlessly on 32 bit XP, on the same motherboard?