m9700 cpu question

So, I have been playing a lot of games lately as school is out, and just this week, I noticed that Battlefield 2142 is starting to get a little jerky, both video and audio. Hmmm, so I decided to give battlefield a rest (major gold will just have to wait), so I switched to Oblivion, also begining to get a little jerky...

Hmmmm, so I plugged in supreme commander, which used to run great, now however, is EXTREMELY jerky (again, both the video and audio actually are skipping...)

when I started checking things, I noticed my cpu seems to be spazing a bit. Running up to 100% percent and back down quite often, even at idle. The temps are also very high, unless I am playing a very taxing game, my temps don't usually reach the 70's, now I am sitting here at idle, basically with an xplorer window open and typing and my cpu continues to spike up and down while temps are fluctuating between 70-74.

I suspected something malicious running in the background, but there is nothing that I can find out of the ordinary.

So, here are my questions:
1. Is there anything besides Adaware and Norton I could run that would do a better job of detecting malicious software.

2. Or is my cpu bugging out on me?

As always, thanks for the help guys!

Nope, no hardware controller installed, I have done everything else you suggested already - that is why I was considering a possible hardware problem. No matter what program I have up and running, it spazes. Its the craziest thing... thanx for the input though e-dirt...

well, I started typing this on my m9700, but it just wouldn't do anything, so I have been demoted to my wifes dell inspiron 6000.

I am running Norton, I can't remember which version, but it is fairly recent. It has been kept up to date and i never disable it. I ran several scans with it, which revealed absolutely nothing.

When I typed the post above, my iexplorer.exe was fluctuating between 30% and 99% - the whole time it fluctuated however, my cpu constantly read 100%.

I turned it off for a while and booted back up a little while ago, the first program I turned on was outlook (which automatically starts msmessanger) My cpu usage was at 100% again with msmsgs.exe taking up 99% consistantly. I had also started internet explorer, which was running at like 3%. I closed outlook and msmessanger - everything fell back to normal with system idle running at 99% for about 10 seconds (despite everything showing 0 and system idle taking up the bulk, my cpu still showed to be at 100%)
After teh 10 seconds, iexplorer.exe shot up to 99%. I tried closing and when it finally closed - everything showed to be normal, but the cpu still was running at 100% and 82 degrees. It started skipping and lagging so badly I just shut it off.

If this is a virus, it is an insane one - do you think resetting to a restoration point would fix this. I have tried that with other viruses and it usually doesn't work.

I am assuming it is possible for a cpu to fail, I have never actually heard of that happening, but this machine is behaving so strangely, I can't imagine what might be the culprit.

I will try a restore point, if that doesn't work, its a reformat later this week when I have the time I guess...

That is unless one of you very wonderful people can figure out what the heck is going on...

I had blow out the fans the other day, but I went ahead and took the back cover off and checked everything. There really wasn't any dust in there, except for a very minor accumulation on the fans, not enough to cause any problems. I did the system restore - I had installed several software updates over the last 4 weeks, so I went back two months - it is still just as jerky as ever... I think I am just going to burn an image of my hdd and do a reformat. After the reformat, i should know for sure if this was being caused by virus or malfunction program. If it is software related, then I can just bring my important data over from my backup drive. If it is hardware related, I will have an image + a backup, so I should be able to get my m9700 back to where it was without any trouble... Still, this is the strangest behavior I have every had out of a pc... I am seriously hoping now that it is just software... Thanks for the input guys! Now I have to go take a nap cause I stayed out too late last night at the chevelle concert It was awesome though...

I bet that is what is happening - I have been watching things like a hawk and it will start off fine at like 55c, then the temp slowerly eeks its way up. This of course is coinciding with the cpu spiking, so I wasn't sure which was the problem and which was the symptom. For example, my machine has been on for 5 minutes. It was running great when I first booted up. No games, just web surfing and e-mail, everything worked great for minutes 1-4, and now my temp is up to 68c and rising, at the same time the cpu usage is begining to spike. Yesterday, I noticed as it began to reach teh 80's, my cpu would downclock to 33%. I believe the thermal pad break down might be exactly what is occuring. I am going to hold off on sending mine in Kazkek and see what goes on with yours, let us know what is going on. If its just a thermal pad, could this be fixed with replacing the pad with some Arctic silver as a 'quick' but effective fix? My temps are in the low 70's now, so my time is growing short... I have better go. Has anyone else experienced this phenomenon? Or are Kazkek and I the only lucky ones so far At least my 360 is working this week. I am on my 4th one of those, I just hope 360 #4 holds out until I get my m9700 back up and running correctly...

My lcd has not given me any trouble that I have noticed yet, however, as soon as I noticed a decrease in performance, I pretty muched stopped gaming. I will probably try the artic silver approach and see what that does for the problem - hopefully, this will prevent any LCD problems from happening... Did you get your m9700 pretty early on kazkek? I was one of the first to get one, so maybe we are at the begining of this problem developing.

*Another Update*

Well, it wasn't my iTunes after all, I am assuming that iTunes just aggrevated the problem. After it acted up terribly again, I backed up my data, reformatted and now the lappy is back to where it started when it arrived at my house and I am still experiencing little lags in everything.

Internet explorer lags on even the most mundane tasks as well as outlook. Also the audio (windows sounds and mp3's) will actually slow down and start to crackel.

The crazy thing is that it does not do it consistantly, it is only periodic, however, it is enough to be very VERY annoying. I cannot game with it at all.

Before I call AW tonight and probably have to send it in - Any suggestions as to what might be the problem? Is it like kazkek said and the cpu is just over heating?