Windows 7: Random 1 sec lock up causing problems

recently(maybe starting 1 month ago) I started having lockups that last about 1/2 to 1 second. The effect is the mouse freezes up or when I am using a certain audio program it causes the audio in the app to glitch and loop over a small portion. This has never happened in the last 4 years.



I must have installed some program that installed some drivers. When monitoring the cpu I see the glitch happen(the cores spike) but do not know what is causing it. I doesn't seem to be from any apps since they do not generally spike up(or it happens so fast I can't tell).

It is possible it is the audio app but it is setup exactly the same way as it always has been. It maybe a chain reaction type of effect where something triggers something else to cause the glitch.

Is there any way to monitor exactly for problems of this scenario?

One thing I did install a while back which I never used before was Dataram's RAMDISK. And put my page file on it. I'm not sure why it would cause problems but who knows. I really just need a way to find the offending program/driver.

BTW, I have a rather optimized system so no simpleton answers about viruses, malware, services(it could be a service issue as I run minimally and sometimes disabling a service causes inadvertent problems...), reboots, reinstalls, etc... I'm asking a specific question and need a specific answer. I'd prefer some software the does specific monitoring of process task switching times, cpu spikes, memory spikes, etc...