Quite often you need not be in a hurry to do a defrag. I am somehow guessing you have 2 partitions (my Acer came like that). Doing a fresh install and its still slow and noisy, could mean that the drive is fragmented, perhaps more the second partition than the first.
Try run a defrag (under System Tools) and see if that helps. I had a similar issue about a year ago. I got frustrated with the windows defrag so I bought Diskeeper from www.velisa.co.za and man alive, this is the best investment I have ever made. Acer is faster, more reliable, quieter and runs cooler. The best part is Diskeeper is automatic and uses idle resources to do its job AND you don't have to shedule it to runs. Give it a shot and let me know.
hi from the hip, just as i was losing hope, um how much does this defrag program that you suggested cost? is there a free trial that i can check out first, sorry im not being stingy but students live on a tight buget and what if it doesnt slove my problem then i would have wasted all that cash, is there some sort of money back guarantee?