Ok, As far as Intel vs AMD, my Main system is an Athlon 64 3500 and my Laptop is a Pentium 4 3.4ghz (800fsb) So given that they both stutter, I dont think a processor is the difference.
However, I do have more info. I ran my defrag this morning and it kept locking up, then the D drive would dissapear. Strange. So I had to reboot to get it back. Then I ran my defrag again (I use O&O Defrag) and it was locking up on the Valve folder on a specific file. I tried it two or three times. Finally I tried running the Error Checking on the disk and that locked up. So I booted in safe mode, same deal. So I booted back up and uninstalled HL2, Steam and every remnance of Valve, then ran RegScrubXP, then re-ran defrag, and no problems. Running the Error Check on that drive now and it is already past where it locked up. So I can only deduce that my system doesnt like valve. Or perhaps if I reinstall it will work. I had originally installed it on my D drive of the laptop, then uninstalled and reinstalled on the C drive. Same results, but as I looked at the D drive, there was still stuff there in the Valve folder as if it had teh full install still. Strange. I know this is a long post, but I wanted to share that. By the way, in both the defrag and Error checking I could here the drive making a noise, as if it were trying to get past a bad block or somthing. That was at the moment it was locking up. Now it works great.I did a basic defrag, and then I will do the full name defrag.
SJRACER