On your XP-P machine (#1 machine), how many things do you have running at Start Up? Are there any items that are unnecessary that you can "Disable" (not delete)?
When you say that your machine "freezes" for 5 - 6 seconds, are things loading up at this time?
You can also always go to the Avast GU > Settings > Troubleshooting > click on "load Avast services only after loading other system services" to see if this helps.