Virus>?

[jadis]

excuse the lame question, but maybe someone here can help. my CPU usage is shooting up to nearly 100% as soon as i open internet explorer in XP. over the past 3 weeks or so its gradually gotten worse and worse until now it takes a long while to scroll down messageboards. typing this post, i'm typing and the words finally come up about 10 seconds later. do i have a virus? how do i fix this?

[X-Gote]

Sounds like you might have adware up the ass.

There some software called "Ad-Aware" that can clean all that crap off your computer (and its free):
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

If you still have no luck, give this link a shot, wouldn't hurt to scan your hard drives for viruses (click "Scan Now"):
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Good luck

[cpud]

in addition to ad-aware i use Spybot Search & Destroy... it has many features Ad-Aware does not.

http://www.safer-networking.org/