I think one issue here is not understanding how malware in general works here.
All malware has a purpose that sometimes is not easily determined. The most common reasons are (1) to add your computer to a botnet to create a network for parallel computing, (2) to trick you into paying money for fake services or as a randsome for your files, (3) install a keylogger to hijack sensitive accounts.
Here's the most common misconception of malware:
Malware almost always never includes a computer crashing as part of their plan. If a computer is crippled or offline then it cannot carry out its intended payload. The best case scenario for malware is to be installed without you ever knowing so. As such, when a computer restarts or is not acting as intended, it's almost always a driver or hardware issue.
With that said, it looks like you're spending way too much effort on the AV and Firewall (the former is the absolute last wall of defense while the latter is usually the first or second one). I believe you may be neglecting all the stuff in between those two items. I would suggest reading this on computer security if you want to better secure your system (exclude EMET section as that is known to cause issues with trainers).
Link[Edited by Neo7, 4/27/2014 4:48:09 PM]EDIT: Your slow boot times may be a side affect of bloat creep that is caused by necessary programs you may be installing. It's very easy to neglect and not pay attention to this and is compounded further by installing more stuff to try to improve performance. Rule of thumb: Keep it simple and only install it if you need it. If you love to try out software and evaluate then consider setting up a VM architecture for test environments that you're free to trash without affecting the real system (VirtualBox is free for this purpose).
[Edited by Neo7, 4/27/2014 4:55:39 PM]