HP/Compaq :: 8510p- Both CPUs Shot Up To 100 Percent And Everything Became Horribly Slow

I purchased an 8510p

It first started when I was doing a light activity (word processing). What happened was both CPUs shot up to 100 percent and everything became horribly slow. Left/right Clicking on an item or the Start orb might take 30 seconds or longer before it would work. Task Manager showed 100 percent CPU usage under performances, but sorting by CPU processes, only 10-15 percent was being used.

I restarted, and to my surprise, instead of the nice under 1 minute load time to the desktop, to took at least 15 minutes where both CPUs were constantly at 100 percent. Safe mode was also very sluggish, where I stopped non-essential processes with msconfig. So I yanked my HDD and did a backup just so I wouldn't lose anything. After a few hours of the 8510p sitting, I put back the HDD and the machine worked perfectly for about an hour, then both CPUs shot up again to 100 percent. Once the issue happens, it occurs everytime I reboot regardless of how I boot into Windows. After being powered off for 4 or more hours (or overnight), It might work for an hour or so and then become horribly sluggish, or it might start out being sluggish, too. (BTW, no viruses)

So I got on the instant chat with HP support and told them about my issue. My tech had me switch out my 2 gigs of RAM with another laptop, but that didn't fix the loading issue. He said it needed to be sent in, so I received my box last Tuesday. On Wednesday, I got a call from HP saying my machine was fine and the only problem was my battery was dead and that would cost me 212 dollars (I don't know where they pulled that number, because a new battery on their website is 109). Great, the time it would actually work for an hour, it works perfectly there. I told them that I didn't need a new battery (I pretty much use it as a desktop at home), but that there was some other issue. She said she would email the "advanced" repair guys to look at my machine...