As I said I had a very distorted sound and over all sluggish feel to the system, I did a few things for purely testing, trial and error. I uninstalled the Windows Media Centre, and use Winamp .. didn't improve anything really. I disabled the onborad wireless adapter and plugged a usb stick one instead. The sound distortion went away completly and things appear to be a lot quicker all round.
I don't know whether to go back to WMC, or stay as I am, but my main problem was the distorted and slow sound when playing mp3 via network, which must have something to do with the onboard sound and wireless adapter..both Realtek. I haven't a clue really what the problem was, but it is 100% better. Plus win7 has a much better feel to it; it doesn't feel like I am confined to a slow moving cardbopard box. Constantly tryin to get out of
Sorry for rambling