[ddouglass]

What was the original version of Hoster you bought with the laptop?
If it was before version 4.00 then as you know there has been a whole lot of changes including the display which has expanded greatly over what it used to do. This means more processing power and time for Hoster than ever before.
When you say you have done all the Windows updates, is that the Auto-Updates or have you gone to the Microsoft Updates web and done the Custom updates? (Just checking to be sure).
In another post you state "my cpu is running at 100% with only (2) programs running". What other program are you running?
Also you didn't answer Mark's question about whether you had loaded any other programs on the computer since getting it. This information is needed for us to be able to help you determine the problem.