Computer lags at regular intervals

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

I'm having the most bizarre lags problems. It only tends to show up when
playing MMORPGs, but it's happened with two different games, so I assume it's
a problem with my computer and not the games themselves.

About every 30 minutes, lasting for about 3 minutes at a time, my computer
performance comes to a grinding halt. The lag doesn't start right away,
sometimes I can play for a couple of hours before this begins, but once it
does, the lag reoccurs on regular intervals. I've checked the running
processes, and I haven't been able to find anything that looks strange or
using too much cpu power. I've run virus programs and spyware programs and
haven't been able to resolve the problem. Other people on my home network
don't experience these problems.