Question : Slow performance in XP Mode

I'm learning about XP Mode in Windows 7. When I create a new XP Mode VM, everything works well until I click the Windows Update icon. Prior to that point, I can open Notepad and type along normally. However, once the WU icon is clicked, keyboard performance slows to a crawl; i.e., there may be as much as a 3-seoncd pause between keystrokes and the appearance of the word on the screen.
Hardware is a Dell D520 laptop with a Core 2 processor running at 2 GHz and 2 GB RAM.

Answer : Slow performance in XP Mode

Solution found on the MS VM forum:
http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/09/19/471612.aspx
By installing SETI@home on the physical machine, evidently the processor is not allowed to go into a lower power/performance mode defined by the ACPI settings. This is despite my setting the power settings to max everything.

I can easily recreate the problem by clicking the Pause button on the SETI application, noting that Notepad is slow, clicking Resume on the SETI app, then seeing Notepad speed up. All of the Windows Update stuff works fine as long as SETI is running.