Windows 7 has High CPU Usage and slow performance

Wow. Instant relief. Who needs any stinkin' libraries when I don't use Windows Media Playe anyway. I just eliminated libraries altogether. CPU usage went from a constant 100% to a scant 8% with Safari running. Thanks!

So I am here to add to the extensive list of people who have a problem where their windows 7 machine runs at abnormally high levels of CPU usage for random lengths of time and then stops. I've been having this problem since January of 2011 and have spent a long time searching and experimenting in order to find the answer. So far my quest has been fruitless. 

Original System Specs:

HP EliteBook 8540w

i5 Processor

4 gig ram

1 gig dedicated video ram

320 gig 7200 RPM HDD

all the "right" antivirus/antimalware installed

I bought this machine in August of 2010. The problem began happening in January of 2011 when my machine would randomly have all of it's cores ramp up to 100 or so percent over the course of 10 minutes and would sit there on 100 for hours until with no provocation or changes the thing would mysteriously slow back down and run normally like the awesome PC it was. Additional symptoms of this would be that, only while having these "fits", any sound coming out of the speaker would crackle and stutter. This wouldn't happen without the "fit" happening. Additionally a further trigger for this would be watching a flash video (say youtube or hulu) which would run fine for 1-2 minutes before locking the machine up at 100%. It should be noted that while running at 100% the machine is usable if extremely slow. For instance it takes one whole second for keystrokes to appear and every program runs like it's in molasses.  All through I would run almost daily virus scans with 3+ different scanners, have daily defrag sessions, run CCleaner religiously, etc and nothing came up as a warning signal. This persisted until March of 2011 when I sought help from a local service expert. His suggestion was to wipe the machine and start from scratch with a clean installation of windows which we did but soon after (within 2 days) the problem returned. Working on Video Card drivers failed, attempting to log errors or events that caused this failed, using process explorer ( A favorite suggestion of J W Stuart who offers his support on these forums) showed no one process causing the issue and even running a clean install of windows with only Chrome installed and nothing else (or no personal data recovered) would bring the problem about. So perhaps it's a faulty chip we hypothesized. Over the course of the next 2 months the processor was replaced TWICE, the PSU was replaced and the motherboard was swapped once. Each time the issue returned and each time the machine was in it's "clean" state with no viruses, programs or anything to cause problems. Finally we had enough and this september had the machine declared a "lemon" by HP. They replaced it and sent me out a new laptop.

Current Machine Specs:

HP Elitebook 8540w

i7 processor

8 gig ram

500 gig, 7200 RPM HDD

1 Gig dedicated Video card

all the right "antivirus/antimalware" software.

So I got the new laptop in late september of 2011 and much to my hopeful glee it ran well for the first 2 hours out of the box. I was planning on running it in a clean "experimental" state to begin  for 2 weeks in order to ensure it wasn't some website or something I had gone to which was causing the problem. 2 hours into using the machine it began hogging CPU again, never 100% but drawing between 30 and 80 percent  when the "fits" would happen. Most people have the urge to make a kneejerk reaction and scream "virus! spyware! malware!" but remember I am running Malwarebytes, Kaspersky and Spybot S&D along with other firewalls and such and I run scans nightly.  None of these scans turn up anything more than a cookie or two. Additionally, I visit the same websites on other machines I use as I do on this one and they don't experience the slowdown. So with this revelation under my belt )that the new machine was also doing it) I tried a new approach. In stead of reimaging the machine to the image I had been running previously I did a total new installation of windows on the machine including a hard dive reformat. After installing all of the updates and drivers which go along with the machine I was yet again greeted with a fit not 2-3 hours after starting to use it (again in a "clean" state with minimal programs installed and no personal data).  Youtube and hulu are no longer triggers like they once were and the sound still crackles while the new machine is having a fit. The laptop has been out of the box for 2 weeks and is having the same software problems its predecessor had. Why?

So here I sit, in the middle of a very long fit, waiting for it to go away because I know I can't control it. Sometimes restarting helps but most times the fit will come back within 10 minutes of restarting the machine. I have outlined the fixed I have tried to date so please review them before you suggest I do something. Also I read through the majority of this thread and if a solution that was suggested applied to me then I tried it. None of them have. What else can the MS Support Community Suggest?

Download Process Explorer (freeware from Microsoft). For further information about Process Explorer see here:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/SystemInformation/ProcessExplorer.mspx

What process and path is generating the CPU activity?

Wes,

 if you go back a few pages one of these posts claims Kaspersky is a cause, so may be try uninstalling amd run say Microsoft Security Essential (free), just to prove? and see if that cures?? MY trouble started with a hard drive change an the audiodg.exe file gbeing th clprit, other processes cause it as well, but I palan to change drives to SSD and a spindle storage, plus a 64 bit OS. If you don't want to uninstall Kaspersky, change scan times around? Start about pg 18 or 19?

  Pisces