Hi my pc specs are as follows
Amd athlon 64 3800+
2gb giel value ram
32 bit
asus a8v vm se mobo
Randomly sometimes my cpu usage goes up to 100% and makes the computer run relly slow and i cant even open the start menu this goes on for a minute or two and then goes back down. this happens sometimes when i am playing on games and slows the game down so much it is unplayable and this gets rely annoying when playing online. another question is do you think that i should overclock my cpu i have sufficiant cooling to do so but am wondering weather it would be worth it

You may have sufficient cooling, but you don't have a good motherboard for overclocking.

Your CPU useage problem is being caused by something you have running in the background...could be spyware, a virus, or possibly a 'legit' program that has no business loading at startup.

Thanks for the reply and yes i have noticed i have a crap motherboard so that is out of the wuestion unless i upgrade it and i dont have any programs running in the background as i check the prosseses when this happens and this is happening more frequently now

sounds like some anti virus or firewall is running scans in the background or upgrading or something... what anti virus or anti-spy ware or firewall program(s) are you running