Windows 7: Strange System Stuttering

Seemingly randomly, my system begins stuttering when doing basic things. It's most noticeable when pulling-up Windows 7's taskbar (it's set to auto-hide) and viewing Winamp's spectrum analyzer visualization thing when something is playing, both of which become very choppy in animation. Nothing in Task Manager seems to indicate anything hogging the CPU however. Oddly enough, starting Task Manager or opening Windows 7's Control Panel instantly remedies the problem...



I usually only have Firefox, Winamp, and maybe some other insignificant application running when this occurs. No background programs at all. I run a very well maintained system and all of my drivers and software are up-to-date, but this has me stumped.

I know this is a bit vague, but does anyone have any ideas?

I would have tended to suspect the video card or driver, but you say that you have the latest driver (latest Windows video driver, or latest from the manufacturer?). I have no idea of why starting the TM or CP would effect it, but the video card is the only thing left that comes to mind. If you have SpeedFan installed, see if he GPU temp and Vcore1 voltage are within tolerance. You could also run a video benchmark program to see what happens.