Reinstalling win7.
I just wiped it again. I am installing things one by one to try to isolate A) any kind of driver change for the better and B) trying to disable services one by one until it can boot up and shut down in less than 2 minutes, and things stop turning themselves off and on.
Works like a POS with a bare windows install.
Works like a POS with HP crap installed.
Works like a POS with every hdd except the one that came in it with the image that came on it in every configuration in which it's been tested.
Conclusion:
POS.