cpu at 100% from startup on?

Ok, so my computer has been running really slow recently. I'm decently computer savvy, and i know how processes work and i can see cpu and memory usage, but none of it looks very out of the ordinary, save a few redundant chrome.exe processes. But that has always been that way, so I take that to be normal too. As I said, my laptop (pretty new compaq with intel celeron 900 @220 ghz) is constantly maxing out its cpu usage but the task manager window doesnt show any processes hogging it. I'm thinking that its spyware or a virus, so I ran spybot, crapcleaner, and avast antivirus, and the only thing i found was alot of pups in spybot, which i immunized, and still i have this same problem. I dont want to do a system restore, because Ive recently made a few websites that i want to keep saved and a few other programs and stuff.

i torrent alot, but i always make sure to read the comments and make sure they are safe for download. another thing that might be the cause is i just have about 10% memory left in my c drive, but its not yet in the red and therefore I dont think that could cause such a malfunction. I am at a loss, and if i dont get an answer that works it looks like im going to have to save all my files i want kept to the internet (i dont have an external hd or anything) and slooowly download them again later. so please help me if you can, and also please check this question again once youve answered, because i will provide additional details in relation to your answer, and you can edit your answer accordingly, so as to progress the situation and thus (hopefully) solve the problem.