Windows 7 - Alright it's been long enough I'm frustrated. My CPU is out of control

Okay I'm going to do my best to explain this problem I'm having. My laptop was working great for a year, and for the past month I've been having huge problems. My CPU a month ago started having insanely high usage from some taskmgr processes. Firefox and explorer mostly. I have taken some screenshots to show some problems. Before this started I could have 30 tabs open and barely have a problem, and many could be streaming shows etc. I got fed up and did an HP system recovery and it went away for a while.

It takes forever to redo all my settings and reinstall programs so that isn't an option again. Considering it only fixed it for a few days I need to get to the bottom of this. I can't figure out what's causing this problem at all. Everything will be working great and then bam, 55 CPU usage by Firefox and everything crawls. I know about add-ons and extensions, but I have ZERO except flash. Absolutely nothing else running. Can anyone help me here, I will post some screenshots. I can probably answer alot of questions but I'm really in need of some hard-core tech help. I like to think I know a decent amount about computers but this has be stumped.

Thanks so much everyone, I know I'm not the only one with this problem it's all over but I can't find the right thread anywhere with my unique situation.

I had a similar problem last year with my wife's HP laptop and it turned out to be a faulty battery.

I can't guarantee this is what's causing your problem, but it's worth considering. If you don't have access to another battery you could take it into your local repair shop and get it checked out.

In the meantime, do you get the same symptoms if you remove the battery and run your laptop on mains power?

Interesting idea I hadn't thought of that. I just removed it and it doesn't seem to be making a difference immediately. Should I restart my laptop?

The interesting thing is I had it sent to HP and the battery was replaced. Then when I got it back I had this problem for the first time. HP was extremely unhelpful when I called a month ago because while I was waiting for them to ship it back it went out of warranty. The guy kept demanding a 99 dollar phone fee to diagnose the problem. What a joke.

My CPU is still running very high though,

The thing is my cpu is very jumpy, I will do nothing extra and it will be at 2 and without touching anything it goes to 80 percent usage and back down. No idea what's causing this.

If you've removed the laptop battery, plug in the power cord and restart the computer.

Have you tried removing the back covers and checking for dust?

Just restarted it and no change just on ac power, still jumpy cpu usage and very weird dragging.

Yeah I regularly clean it I don't think it has any dust at all.

If you have good reason to suspect Firefox then I would suggest completely uninstalling Firefox (Control Panel > Remove Programs), restart the computer, then install the most recent version of Firefox fresh.
Afterward, pay careful attention to any extensions or plug-ins you install. Give each a while to see if any symptoms reappear.

Also, you can use MSCONFIG (Start > type: msconfig) to stop programs from loading on startup (go to the Startup Tab > uncheck the programs).
You can usually stop all of them without issue. You may want to keep the anti-virus running - but you may need to check that too.
See if the issue disappears, then go back in and re-check each program one at a time and test for symptoms.

What are you running for anti-virus?

And what is the Action Center warning you about? (The flag symbol in the Taskbar systray section with the red X over it.)

CoolDudeClan,

Download, install, and run the Cleaner portion of CCleaner (link in my sig).

What anti-virus software are you using? Any third party firewall or spyware program installed?

Jumps in cpu activity are completing normal. Remaining at a high level is not normal.

To get an idea of what's using cpu time, then:
| type RESMON | ENTER | CPU tab

Okay so, to answer the first thing I have been suspecting firefox for a while but it's also doing for weird things like taskmgr, which go up to using 50cpu. I only have one plug-in installed on firefox, and it's flash
Also I've done the msconfig thing only leaving on my touchpad driver and my anti-virus.

I had Avria for anti-virus, thought that may have been the problem so after the system recovery I installed microsoft security essentials.

As for the action center, it says to back up my files and turn on Windows Security Center.

I will try the CCleaner, I've had that program before so I'll give it another shot.

Also the spikes in performance would usually be normal but I wasn't having them before this, at least not this severe. With almost nothing open now it goes from normal like 5 percent usage all the way to 90 and stays there for a while and goes back down, then way back up.

Turn on the Action Center.

Is your FireFox the very latest version? I ask because several of us have noticed FireFox performance problems in the very latest version.