I'm just a trial and error knucklehead, but for what it's worth, I did some research, found out my RAID wasn't using IRST, disabled it, and CPU usage dropped from 20 percent at idle down to 2 percent. Would have saved me a lot of time if someone else had posted this little piece of information -so I'm doing it now for someone with a similar problem in the future. To them, I say in advance, "you're welcome."
**IMPORTANT: Make sure your RAID isn't using it: It will tell you how to check when you go to remove it under add/remove programs... or here: Under device manager/Storage Controllers: You should NOT see intel controllers ALSO under Device Manger/IDE ATA/ATAPI controls You should NOT see intel controllers -if you do NOT, you should be able to remove IRST with no problems, like me.