Insane CPU Usage

My laptop is having an insane CPU usage while playing GW lately.
It is already pretty high without GW on, but it becomes ridicilous when I'm playing(Up to 100%).
Is there anyway I can lower the RAM usage of the game? Or something I can do in general to get a lower CPU usage?
I'm playing on an Acer laptop( with Vista on it :/)

My specs are;
Intel Core 2 Duo 2GHz P7350
4 Gigs of memory
NVidia GeForce 9600M GT 512Mt
2 x 320 GB hard disk

Thx in Advance

I'm not sure how much this will help, but when I was suffering from lagg I reduced the graphical settings of GW in the options menu. I guess a de-frag and disk clean can't hurt either.

Since the cpu usage is high without GW on, your computer might be infected with a virus or other bloatware.

Not using a laptop but am on vista and had similar problems.

My cpu was running like mad all four core's to 100% and this happened at times without running GW but almost always when I ran GW or other graphics intensive program.

In my case it was a combination of things
1 my hard disk was 3 quarters full
2 I had a program running on the sidebar to monitor the system this caused a problem with firefox, when I closed firefox the cores went to 100% usage.

Solved by
Moving a large number of files to my external drive so my drive has far more space on it.
Less for vista to index and defrag.

Replaced the sidebar program with another and all is fine

Yeh I get this alot too.Running 32 bit vista with a very high tech gaming rig my pc still is sluggish a lot of the time...not sure if it's the same thing but can anyone help with this? I have 6 gig of ram and 2 400gig hard drives so really there shouldn't be so much of a problem yet there is...

Already scanned my system and its clean .

My hd is around 50%, but I'm gonna try the system defrag.

1. Check what is running in the background close extra applications or programs unneeded etc… (although virus software is a big user leave it on)

2. Turn off any extra feeds on the side bar and see if it helps (stocks, news, weather etc…)

3. 9600M GT should be hitting 60+ ranges FPS when away from towns. I would tone down the settings and make sure you are in full screen and see what you are getting. See if it helps.

4. Defrag your drive or at least check how bad it is

You also mentioned turning down ram requirements for gw (what is your ram usage during the 100% usage)

If it is random lockups stop using web browser and see if it helps. (My work computer will now and then spike my CPU usage but it is from IE locking up resources).

i think i have the same laptop, my cpu usage is usualy arrond 35-50%, it depends on other programs i'm running and if i'm in a town.
I would try to defreg your hard disk, or maybe lower your grapics setting a bit

i had the same problems then UPGRADED to XP and my cpu usage droped dramaticly.

defrag and use a registry editor weekly or bi-weekly and you will be amazed at how much smoother and faster your pc runs. Simple little maintenance things like that are WORTH IT PEEPS. XD

*also having the index feature of Vista designated to a separate HDD or partition (from the OS) can be a nice boost for system performance as well*