Strange CPU spikes that canot be identified?

programs running:

zonealarm, avg antivirus free, miutorrent, msn messenger, maplestory, 1-2 webbrowsers, windows explorer

comp specs:

p4, 3.0ghz, 512ram, raedon X300/X550 series 128ram, adsl broadband, 80gb HDD which currently is abt 50% used

i am getting strange CPU usage spikes ~100% from windows task manager (performances); graphics laggy and sound stuttery. however usually i am in the game maplestory when it happens; im unable to see wat caused the spike, only that there was a spike in the history..

processes dont go above 20k Mem usage (viewed during non spike period) and all processes seem normal (not suspicious)

have run anti virus scan, and ad-aware, in fact just format my pc 2wks ago, and never had this problem until today; ie i was able to run all these applications previously, and even more on occasion without any problem at all

how can i stop this from happening or find out whats causing it???

Strange CPU spikes that canot be identified?firewall

Sadly though, it is caused by having too many programs running in your computer.

I suggest disabling the Zone Alarm application as well as changing your Bittorent client to utorrent as that bittorent client uses more memory as well as CPU power compared to utorrent.

Also, windows sometimes does those cpu spikes because it is readjusting its virtual memory settings. If you can, try specifying your virual memory settings though control panel, system.

Also, that 20k (20 thousand) memory usage is too much, my computer barely even reached one thousand memory usage.

Strange CPU spikes that canot be identified?husqvarna

Increase Ur Ram.