When bitspirit is running, or opera is doing a download, etc The CPU usage (more importantly the kernel times) reach 100% What is causing this? and how do I stop it.
There are no unwelcome processes, and all virus-spyware scans turn up negative.
the first thing that pops to mind is VM/Pagefile usage being high because of not enough PHYISCAL memory on the computer. That is the first guess without more info