Acer Aspire 5102WLMi - Crashing!

Hello

I'm new here and am seeking advise about my newly purchased laptop.
After reading some of the posts on this site I'm wondering if I've bought the right laptop... anyway

My Acer Aspire 5102WLMi runs fine with the factory settings provided until I start installing software, namely McAfee Internet Security Suite, Microsoft Office XP, Ad-aware and a couple of photo editing programs.

Nothing too taxing I'd have thought, but the system crashes seconds after completing the boot process. The screen just freezes and the only way out is to push the power button. Occasionally it runs fine, but this is very occasionally.

I've reinstalled the factory settings twice and then installed extra software to find the same problems.

I've now reinstalled the factory settings again, but without adding any extra software and the laptop seems to work fine, although this is useless without the extra programs. I don't really want to connect to the internet without anti-virus protection.

Is McAfee the problem here? I get the feeling that there is a conflict here somewhere.

The system summary is:
Acer Aspire 5102WLMi (UK)
Operating System - Windows XP Media Centre Edition 2005
Processor - AMD Turion 64 x2 Mobile Technology
Bios - Acer v2.60
Graphics - ATI Radeon xpress 1100 (128MB shared)
Memory - 1GB (2x 512MB)

Does anyone have a similar problem or any clues how to solve this problem?

Also I noted in another post that it is possible to convert the file system from FAT32 to NTFS by typing "convert c:/fs:ntfs" at the command prompt. Does this affect the installed software? ie. format the hard drive, or does it have no visible affects? Will it matter that the d: partition (containing factory settings) is still FAT32 if I ever have to reinstall, or should I change this too?
FAT32 just seems old fashioned!!

I don't pretend to be any sort of computer whizzkid, so please don't baffle me with jargon! lol

Hope thats not too many questions for my first post!!
Many thanks in anticipation of your replies.

After several trials and errors it seems that McAfee Internet Security was the problem.

I've now got Ad-aware, AVG Free virus scanner and Zone Alarms firewall; all is running smoothly now. Even with the teething problems I really do like this laptop.

A friend suggested converting to NTFS, I wasn't sure if it would work or if there was any point doing it. I decided to leave well alone in the end 'if its not broken don't fix it'.

I've not heard of Kaspersky before, will it definately work? I had trouble with McAfee and a colleague had trouble with Norton on his Acer laptop (not the same model).

I'll take a look at the Kaspersky website, many thanks for your advice.