I fixed the issue with this:
Buy the Toshiba Satellite P305D-S8828 17" Widescreen Laptop and other Laptop computers at circuitcity.com
It was $100 less last week when I bought it!
It was time for an upgrade anyway. My old machine had served me well for the past 5 years with minimal upgrades.
I'm now getting used to vista. It's not as bad as everyone says it is. Maybe a lot of the bug are worked out finally?