Strange CPU Usage and Slowdown

[Calum]

Download, install, update and run the programs suggested here, barring the anti virus programs as you already have Norton.
See if they pick up anything and post back.

[2k_dummy]

Try disabling any unnecessary services. Indexing service is one that will cause that. It is supposed to speed up system searches, but eventually ends up hogging resources.

[skyseemstragic]

I have Adaware and Spybot and used them before posting here.  They failed to solve the issue.  I also have Hijack This, but I don't know enough about this stuff to do much with it.  I'm doing a scan with AVG right now.

Additionally, I've been doing some googling about this problem and have found some people with the same issue but have yet to find a thread or atricle pinning down what exactly is causing it and how to fix it.

[Calum]

Do a scan with hijackthis and post a report here after your AVG scan.
Then we can see if you do have malware.

[skyseemstragic]

Try disabling any unnecessary services. Indexing service is one that will cause that. It is supposed to speed up system searches, but eventually ends up hogging resources.

I've had this disabled for some time now.

[Fed]

Does it spike in safe mode?

Take a look at the startup entries listed in msconfig, disable them & try it.
Then enable them one at a time, re-booting & testing after each one.

[skyseemstragic]

I finished scanning with all of the suggested programs and ran Hijack This.  It looks kinda scary, but then again I'm terrible with stuff like this.

[skyseemstragic]

Also after rebooting with all of the start up processess disabled, the problem persists.

[soybean]

I took a quick look at your HijackThis log.  I don't know what some of it is, without researching, but the numerous lines for C:\Program Files\Logitech\Desktop seems to indicate something amiss there.  Note that all of these lines say 8876480.dll (file missing).  What Logitech products are you using?  What Logitech software do you have installed?  

You might uninstall your Logitech software and reinstall it.  Or, you could download 8876480.dll and put it where it belongs in your system, which seems to be C:\Program Files\Logitech\Desktop Messenger\8876480\Program\BWPlugProtocol.

[Calum]

I'm not too good with HJT logs either, but isn't explorer.[highlight]EXE[/highlight], with EXE in caps, a problem?
I heard somewhere that it was a virus?
I agree with Soybean, the multiple lines for Logitech seem to indicate a problem of some sort.

[skyseemstragic]

Yeah, the Logitech lines seemed shady to me as well.   :-/

I'll see what I can do about that, hopefully it'll be the cause of it.

[2k_dummy]

 

You might uninstall your Logitech software and reinstall it.  Or, you could download 8876480.dll and put it where it belongs in your system, which seems to be C:\Program Files\Logitech\Desktop Messenger\8876480\Program\BWPlugProtocol.

Disable the desktop messenger function. It is a backweb protocol that phones home, albeit to logitech. Totally unnecessary.

[Fed]

Does it spike in safe mode?

[skyseemstragic]

The CPU usage does not spike in safe mode.  Hopefully this'll be helpfull in determining the cause.

I went ahead and got rid of the Logitech software on my computer, here's a fresh Hijack This log after removing them and running Norton again.  However from Googling the cause of it, Logitech Desktop Messenger, I gather it's not really a threat and that my problem may be elsewhere.

[Fed]

Disable Norton & try it again.