Computer Lagging when opening usual Progs. Hardware or software?

[Volaray]

Hi,

I am having trouble with my computer and am not sure if it is hardware or software related. first things first. I am running:

Athlon 64 3000+
2x512 OCZ PC3200
Radeon 9800 pro
Abit KV8 pro Mobo
1 month old 320gb Segate barracuda

This running with a freshly (about 3 wks) formatted hardrive and a clean re-install of XP pro SP2.

The problem that seems to be happening is that normal programs like Firefox, that are not very demanding at all, will spike in processor usage for a few seconds, causing everything to lag. It even lags out the mouse which slows to about 4 fps (so to speak) when it happens. It only started doing this recently and sometimes videos are impossible to play as it completely lags the computer to the point where a restart is necessary. Running any sort of game is also out of the question. It is even taking MUCH longer to startup as well as transferring files to a USB key or just from my doc's to desktop.

So my question to you is: Do you think this is hardware or software related? There are only 30 processes running and I have an up to date version of AVG anitvirus. How am I to fix this? The weird thing is, its not just one program hogging the CPU, which is what I would think a virus would be. Its every other program that does it. (I am only running between 30 and 34 processes at any time)

Any help or recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[Ayman]

I blame RAM,Sometimes your RAM can do such things