High CPU utilization

I have a new system running W7 X64. It's an ASUS I7 with 8GB of memory, and I expected it to be blazing fast. It only has a handful of programs installed, but it is slower than my old P4 XP box.

Initial problems - on about the third day I had it, it refused to boot. Tried safe mode and system restore - System restore failed. Ultimately, it did manage to reboot, albeit very slowly. However, I have never been able to do a system restore.

Current symptoms:
In office 2007, word is very sluggish when saving files - after a pause, a dialogue box shows up at the bottom saying that word is preparing to background save. Next the title bar at the top shows word not responding (briefly) after which the file is saved.

Corel Paint Shop Pro - Very high CPU utilization (close to 100% on one of the cores). File open, and file saves very slow - even on small files.

Explorer - when clicking on directories, I often see the rotating circle (new equivalent to the hourglass?) while explorer opens the directory. Explorer also shows high CPU utilization in one of the cores.

Recent event errors:
Most common -

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error querying for the IVssWriterCallback interface. hr = 0x80070005, Access is denied.
. This is often caused by incorrect security settings in either the writer or requestor process.

Other event errors -

Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

Installed applications:
Office 2007
Windows Live Mail
Corel Paint Shop Pro XI
ULead PhotoExplorer 8.6
Kaspersky 2010
Iolo System Mechanic 9.0
Smart Sync Pro 3.0 trial version
FireFox 3.5.5
Quicken 2007
Card Scan/Label writer
ITunes

I'm not really sure where to turn. I'm starting to have buyer's remorse for buying a new system that I thought would last me for a while.

Any help/suggestions would be appreciated.

Hi.

The Core i7 is blazing fast. The fastest cpu you can buy for home use.

So something is definitely wrong. You can type system information in the start menu search box. Hit enter. The on the screen that pops up, ctrl+s to save.

Then rar or zip the saved file and use the paperclip to attach to a post.

We could have a look at it to see what might help.

Thanks for the reply.
Attached is the system info. I took a quick browse through it and nothing really jumped out at me.
I went through the startup manager and disabled almost everything that had inserted itself (like itunes helper, media insertion helpers from Corel, Ulead, card scan detectors, etc.)
Do you think that the problem might be Kaspersky? Kaspersky 2010 is spec'd to be Win7 X64 compliant, and I haven't noticed much of a hit on the CPU for either services or running processes during file I/O.
Would any other info from the event viewer be helpful?

Well, it probably isn't going to do much but you really should completely uninstall the Bonjour service. Follow this post for x64.

I'd uninstall that Iolo thing. Those kind of apps are unnecessary and more trouble than they're worth.

Almost everybody "in the know" disables Windows Search service. Use services.msc at the start menu search box. Hit enter.

Install a driver for your wireless card!

Other than that, things look alright.

Can't I just uninstall Bonjour through control panel, add/remove? I see an entry there for Bonjour.
Any clues about the VSS errors?
I stopped Windows search and will try uninstalling Iolo.
Thanks,

I wouldn't uninstall it that way because it could lead to networking failure. Command prompt is the best way. It's only two lines needed, hitting enter after each. Then reboot. Then manually delete the folder in program files.