Running Vista. With increasing frequency (now at least twice a day), cpu usage goes to 100 percent. Even with no user programs open. When in that condition, a number of programs run varyingly high cpu usage, including (a recent example):
Task Manager 8 to 50 %
Sidebar 10 to 50 %
DWM 8 to 23 %
Sys Idle 10 to 67 % (never higher)
System 0 to 7 %
SvcHost 0 to 15 %
Explorer 9 to 15 %
lgfxsrvc 0 to 10 %
A reboot fixes this, but not for very long. I regularly run RegCure, which seemed to help when I first installed it; Norton 360 is up to date. No bad stuff ever detected.
Ideas? (I wouldn’t ordinarily tiptoe into this IT-professional site — I’m a retired EE turned journalist, and my tech credentials are decades old — but I’m going nuts with this.)
Thanks for your help.