Task Manager shows 40-60% CPU usage.

Oh, it doesn't happen in safe mode, which is what had me 100% sure it was a software issue.

What would uninstalling the card do? I'm not sure I follow.

Update...I took it to a friend, he's a comp technician...and he tells me it's an IRQ problem(obvious by this point).

But he did say it was the mobo and he had no clue how to fix it. My motherboard is the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium, and apparently there's at least one other person(on some other forum, i forget) who has the exact same problem with me(same mobo, how convenient).

I bought it off Newegg, and I have no idea how their warranty works(I didn't buy any extended warranties). Does anyone know if ASUS offers a manufacturer warranty? I can't seem to find info on this on their site or anything.

I have just gone through a similar experience myself. I did a format in January and all has been well until about 2 weeks ago. When even surfing the web the cpu would spike to 100% then settle down. The processor temperature would would go to 110 and the cpu fan would kick up to 4800. The other zones which would normally run in the low 90's were up in the 100 range. Even opening outlook the fan would increase or running the cursor over the page would have the same effect. Once it would settle down cpu usage was 0, but the fan would continue to race and all of the temperatures would remain high. It would stay this way. I opened the case and with a flashlite examined the heatsink on the cpu and it was caked with dust after only 5 months. After blowing it out really well and also the video card, the heatsink was caked with dust, it is now operating normally again. All temperatures are in the low 90's and the fan is barely audible. I hope that this may be of some help to you, for I was surprised that it made that much of a difference. Also I am wondering if your processor is dual core, if that may have something to do with your cpu usage?

Hi,
I have much the same problem. Here is my spec:
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3700+ 2.2GHz Socket 939
MoBo: MSI K8N Diamond Socket 939 nForce 4 SLI ATX
Memory: Corsair TWINX1024-3200XLPRO DDR 1024MB Kit w/two matched 512MB
Graphics Card: XFX GeForce 6800 GS Extreme XXX Edition 256MB GDDR3 VIVO
Drive #1: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA 8MB 7200RPM NCQ
Drive #2: Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 250GB SATA 8MB 7200RPM NCQ
PSU: Cooler Master Real Power 550W w/Power indicator, 20/24pin Mouse: Logitech
OS: Windows XP Professional

I built this about 6 months ago, and had no problems for the first couple of months. Recently I noticed that the CPU usage was at 40 - 60% with no processes running. After some time trying to find the source of the problem, yesterday I did a reinstall of Window. Last night after the install everything seemed to be ok - the CPU usage was down at about 2%. Today when I went to complete the reinstall the CPU usage again shot up to 40 - 60%. When I noticed it I was just after installing Norton Save and restore, so I unistalled this but the CPU usage is still at 40 - 60%.

Any suggestions on what could be the problem??

Thanks in advance ;-)

Sorry can't help ya bud. My problem was easy enough to fix(yeah right), all I had to do was replace my Mobo, which a few(not very many) people were having the exact same problem with. It is fixed, however.

my mobo was the ASUS A8N-SLI Premium, however, not the same as your board. So I don't know.

Hi - yesterday evening I removed the Graphics card and then reinstalled it (just something I read on another forum). It seems to have improved the CPU usage - it is now down at about 3% when no processes are running (which is good), but when I run a game (say Age of Empires 3) the CPU usage goes upto 100%. Perhaps it is only this game - I will try another one this evening and see how it goes and let you know - good to hear that you got your problem solved!