Windows Vista "twitch"?

[JLCollier2005]

I'm having a weird issue and I'm not sure where exactly to ask for help, because I'm not sure if it's a vista problem or not, but I'll ask here... So on any open windows explorer window, the mouse pointer "twitches"...what I mean by this is that it looks like it's trying to load something or open a new window or something like this, but can't, and it does it over and over. I have a feeling it's slowing down my system as I'm at a constant 35% or so system usage even while idle on the desktop (this is a new computer, 4 gigs of ram, phenom 9100e quad core @1.8). Has anyone ever experienced something like this? I've looked through my task manager and there's nothing there that shows what it could be, no processes running higher then they should be. any help would be great, thanks!

 

[blackangst1]

Have you started by looking at all running tasks? I would do that first. If you dont know what a process is, google it. Take a sxcreenshot, print it out, and start searching

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

What A/V software do you have installed?
I had an issue with AVG free last night and on a t5800 with 4GB ram it was maxing out one Core and eating up over 700MB of RAM.

 

[Rhonda the Sly]

I'm at a constant 35% or so system usage even while idle on the desktop

I've looked through my task manager and there's nothing there that shows what it could be, no processes running higher then they should be. any help would be great, thanks!

Open Task Manager as an Administrator. If it's already open switch to admin mode by using the "Show processes from all users" button in the Processes tab. If no single process, or the total usage or many processes, shows ~35% CPU usage, I'm misunderstanding you. I "system usage" in the first quote CPU or Memory? And is it slowing down your system or not? Or is it simply causing oddball mouse behavior?

Right off the bat my guess would be a borked context menu extention or any other program plugged in to Windows Explorer. I am assuming this only happens when you have opened Explorer windows...

And by "twitches" do you mean it rapidly switches between the normal select and working in background or busy modes?