Quote from dtrader98:
hit ctrl-alt-del
Then sort the mem usage by cllicking on it in task mgr. The highest process name will tell you what is hogging your resources.
Quote from gkishot:
Judging by description of the problem my guess is that internet connection ( or firewall software ) causes the spikes of CPU once he opens a browser window.
Quote from gnome:
If you recently did an upgrade, very likely the culprit.
Quote from Corey:
Sounds like a memory leak problem.
How long has the computer been running without being rebooted? When you try to open a program, can you hear your hard-drive thrashing? Once you run out of physical memory (your DRAM or SRAM), the computer uses the harddrive to store process data -- which is in the magnitude of thousands of times slower than main memory access.
So most likely, your computer has been on for a very, very long time. Windows is notorious for slowly leaking memory and never collecting it, meaning that eventually every process run will be allocated space on the hard-drive, which will cripple your computer's performance.
Try rebooting every couple of days.
Quote from Triple X:
I know this is extreme, but if all of these other suggestions fail, try reinstalling Windows. When I first bought my PC, after a couple of months I had this problem, and IBM reinstalled new MB, CPU etc, and finally reinstalled windows and that was the culprit. Apparently it can become corrupted.
Edit - I see gnome already suggested this...![]()
Quote from gnome:
It's times like this which highlight the value and importance of having backup systems...
There are only 2 kinds of traders... those WITH backup systems, and those who WISH they'd had them.
Backups can not only save your bacon in a catastrophe, they can aid in troubleshooting lesser problems.

Quote from gnome:
Well then, you ought to have backup SOMETHING!![]()
Quote from brownsfan019:
Yeah, backup is not the problem. I just want to solve this problem. That's how I am - when there's an issue at hand, I want to solve it and move on.
One thing I did notice is that I am running Diskkeeper on other computers and NOT this one. I will load it and see if that helps.