what could cause high cpu issue (hardware related i believe?)

Over the last week my computer has gone completely crazy. I lost a hard drive (3.5 inch backup drive) for seemingly no reason. Since then i've had the following probs

1.Taking forever get thru bios... fixed by removing bad drive
2.Taking forever to get windows loaded. About 2 mins to get thru the scroll bar screen
3.Random high cpu load. RR music studders but its not just rr. Sometimes cpu jumps to 100% at the desktop
4.This morning i had a few blue screens. Afternoon they went away.

What the hell could this be. The temp has been mad warmer here lately but i'm not sure its a heat issue. Would heat cause high cpu usage and a drive to crash within the same week? I've got two fans in the case a 40mm and a 80mm. Its a full desktop case mounted in the trunk. No devices have been added so i dont think its a driver issue. No software changes other than an upgraded rr which tests fine. Updated flash. So yea i think i've covered my bases here i just dont have a clue what else to check.

Is there any way other than within the windows system to test the processor speed? Windows says its 2.13ghz (normal) but its a xp-m so i wanna be sure the speed hasnt underclocked itsself. Anyway to test the RPMS n seek time on the hard drive. Ive never had any lags of any kind with rr so i know something is wrong!

Maybe a RAM issue? Do you have internet on that computer? I read a post recently where someone had similar CPU spikes and performance issues, turned out he was loaded with viruses. He never put anti-virus on his carputer (as most of us wouldn't). He added internet to it later, nevver added the AV, and blam-o... viruses. Doubt any of this helps anything... except my post count!!! LOL

i do have internet but its connected so seldomly that i doubt it would be a virus. guess it doesnt hurt to check that tho. Ram has been tested and re-seated.

Are you using any OS tweaks? Maybe grab another drive, load clean Windows on it and compare. That would help to see if it is hardware or software related. Also, slim down the peripherals to the minimum, then build back up until you get problems again, might narrow down the hardware causing the issue (assuming it is related to a peripheral).

i've tried with no peripherals and i had the same issue. at first i just thought it was my extigy but i had teh same issues with the internal sound card. music just gets crackly for no reason

I am having the same issue and ran across this thread that I'm about to try. One thing I did figure out on my system was disabling all internet connections and bluetooth seemed to help. I now only enable a single network connection when I need it and disable it when I'm done.

virus checked and adaware ran and got nothing. I'm ruling out heat too cause it was cool this morning and i had teh same symptoms. I'll try that thread but i do not believe my problem is flash related cause i have high cpu issues outside of rr.