Hi Nick,
Check if you can experience the issue in ‘Safe mode’; if safe mode works fine then set the computer to ‘Clean boot’ state to check for software conflicts.
Step 1:
Windows Startup Settings (including safe mode)
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-8/windows-startup-settings-including-safe-mode
Step 2:
Keep the computer in a clean boot and check for the issue status. If everything works fine after a clean boot, you can infer that some third party services are causing the problem. Proceed with the remaining steps to pin-point out
the third party service. After you figure out the problem causing program, you may have to update or install a higher version of the program, if you seldom use that software you can consider uninstalling it.
How to perform a clean boot to troubleshoot a problem in Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135
Note: Please go through the section:
How to reset the computer to start as usual after troubleshooting with clean boot of the Kb article to boot the computer in normal startup after fixing the issue.
In Windows, you can use the Task Manager to see the current running processes. To open the Task Manager, press
Control+Alt+Delete and click the "Task Manager" option. This will open the window below.
In the Windows Task Manager window, click the Processes tab to view all running processes. Then click the "CPU" header to sort the processes by CPU usage. You can monitor the CPU usage for a few seconds to see what programs are consistently
using the most CPU. If an errant process is using a large amount of CPU power, you can click the End Process button to kill the process. This will free up whatever percentage of CPU power the process was using.
Important: Clicking End Process will immediately quit an application. Therefore, be careful not to end any programs that you are currently using, especially if you have not saved your work.