win xp: cpu usage goes 100%

[alastair84]

i'm using xp pro, and maybe after opening a few browsers and also a div x file on media player at the same time, and all of a sudden, the comp goes real slow.
I open task manager to find that either explorer.exe or idle processes is using all the CPU.
I can obviously close the explorer process, and the CPU usage goes right down. But after making another explorer process, it goes back to hogging the CPU again.

Any suggestions?
my comp is a barton 2500 + 1g ram.

 

[Simmy]

Start with the obvious stuff like virus scan and scan with adaware, spybot s&d, spyware doctor. Look in msconfig to make sure nothing dodgy is loading at startup.

Download and run hijack this and post up your log

 

[Mattus]

System Idle Process should be using most of your CPU. A CPU can't just do nothing, so SIP is a kind of token process which runs when your CPU has nothing else to do.