That is a pretty wide playing field ;-)
Task Manager is the first place to start to look at processes eating
up CPU time.
Find the process that is pegging the CPU and go from there.
The question: Is it a Windows process or another process from an
installed application?
Do you have a spyware scanner to find unknown installed bugs?
You can kill processes through task manager and watch the CPU
Utlization. Stay away from svchost processes until you are sure that
other processes have been eliminated.
I cannot remember the specifics on this, but I have seen spyware
install itself as a svchost.exe process. Looking at it you might
assume it was a legit windows process. From there you have to
determine which svchost to try and kill.
It is a process of elimination, but here is where you can start.
If that doesn't work, you can always start perfmon.exe and look at CPU
and process counters - but that can get a bit hairy if you are not
familiar with it.
