CPU sticking at 100%

I am having a strange problem. If I am using my computer after a recent restart, it is fine. But after it being on for a while, I will come back from idle and use the computer, and it will be stuck using 100% of the CPU. It usually takes a few hours of the computer running for this to happen. Being at 100% when it's idle, I checked the task manager, and can't find anything eating up CPU. I look at the CPU column and the number doesn't add up to 100, so whatever is using the CPU is not showing up. When this happens, the computer is unusable, and it takes like ten minutes to minimize a window. If I restart, that fixes the problem until after the computer has been on for a while and has gone idle. I keep having to restart every few hours to be able to keep using the computer.

I thought maybe this could be caused by a virus or malware, so I did a scan with Norton AV. It didn't find anything. I scanned with Microsoft Malware Remover and said that it found something called Trojan?Win32/Alureon!ing, and that it had partially removed it. It said to run my virus scanner to complete the removal, so I did. Norton still didn't come up with anything. I used SpyBot S&D, Malware Bytes Anti-Malware, and Super AntiSpyware, all coming up with no results. So the problem is probably either gone or didn't exist in the first place. I am also not sure whether my problem and the detection of malware are even related.

I hope this makes sense and someone here can offer a suggestion as to what the problem is. If you need any more clarification or information, let me know.

PS: I have an Intel i3 Quad Core processor, running Windows 7 64 bit and 4GB of RAM. I have Norton Utilities, Norton Antivirus, and Comodo Firewall.

 

I assume you want the processes. Here are the two pages in order:

 

Another thing I noticed: right before it happens, Windows explorer stops responding. I hit restart, and it restarts but the CPU is around 100% and doesn't go down until I restart. Lastnight, I was watching something in VLC and it started skipping and the sound was garbled. I went to pause the show and it was acting slow. Surely enough the CPU was stuck at 100% and I had to force shutdown because the full screen video wasn't minimizing.

 

Also, my computer keeps randomly shutting down. If it's a heat issue it has to be something to do with the way it's programmed to run because it's a really new laptop and there is no indication of any dust or anything blocking the vent.

 

You're running BOINC which is similar to a protein folding application like folding@home from Stanford and they will take up %100 of your CPU if you allow it but will relinquish CPU use to other programs so when you leave your machine alone BOINC then starts up as it sees the CPU as idle. I've run BOINC and it is very well behaved.

The only thing I'd be worried about is the heat from the CPU. Get a software temperature monitor app like CS Fire Monitor to make sure your temps are OK when the CPU is loaded.

EDIT: Oops, I missed the laptop part of it. You may as well get rid of BOINC as it's not doing your machine any good, or at least give it maybe %60 CPU if you wish to keep BOINC. Laptops are not the ideal folding hardware.

 

That's what I thought too. I am pretty sure I set it to not use up more than 80% and not to run if other programs are using more than 50% of the CPU. I closed BOINC for now, and I will see if the problem happens again. If it doesn't then it's probably BOINC, and I will need to change settings or just keep it only on my desktop.