Just to get back to the original question,does your computer run slow when the cpu is 100% ? If so,it could be spyware.Try running an some antispyware scans in safe mode.
we can close this thread. i found out that AOLtsmon was showing up 99 under cpu column in task manager. i tried to disable it, it said access denied. i went to admin tools/services and disabled it and rebooted. now it's back to normal (3%) usage.