I have a relatively new (under 2 yrs old) windows 7 machine. It has 9GB of RAM, and an i7 core CPU (930 @ 2.8GHz w/ 8 CPUs). After about 8 months since a clean install, I noticed my computer was running slowly. I figure it was fragmentation etc, and I did a complete wipe & clean reinstall.

However, my problems are somehow persisting. The computer is running painfully slowly (but in leaps and bounds - sometimes it will work fine for 3 hrs, then suddenly freeze up just from clicking the start button). The 'freezes' happen randomly - not during any especially intensive computing. I initially thought something might be eating through my CPU and/or Memory, but Task Manager indicates that neither the CPU or Memory spike. In fact, even during serious lag, CPU usage remains at less than 5% and Memory at ~ 1.5GB.

It's beyond me why a fresh install on a powerful machine is performing so poorly... and it certainly is frustrating! What could be causing the poor performance, and what can I do to fix it?