so, i've rebooted this clean install repeatedly, i've screwed around with the cat files and i've taken a lot of actually useful log files from various third party software, and i've come to the conclusion that the bios in the pc is clean, at least.

a few notes..

- the squiggly file does reappear. but, it doesn't actually load. this is consistent with previous behaviour.

- my restart/shutdown mutants are not appearing in process explorer. as mentioned, i think these are the reasons my computer is shutting down (after the updates install)

- sorting through autoruns, particularly in regards to the networking, was kind of an eye-opener. stuff that i thought was default clearly isn't. so, i'm going to need to clean that out.

- i have a clean driver list to compare with.

the next thing to do is see what happens when i plug the clean install into the laptop, without connecting to the internet. if i get some nasty behaviour, that strongly suggests the bios. and, that's a problem.