Massive stuttering no matter what I am doing

Is it making any noise when it does this? My guess is either a temperature problem or a failing hard drive.

Use something like HWMonitor to check your temps. It will give you a highest and lowest.

http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/hwmonitor.html

Use Speedfan to check your hard drive's SMART status. Post back if anything is in the red or saying error.

http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Could also be a nasty virus I suppose. You run an antivirus program I hope?

I don't think anything is wrong with the hard drive according to speedfan. Currently doing an extended test though--and that may take awhile.

My temps seem to be okay, but my computer could definitely use dusting, I have been neglecting that for awhile.

As for sounds, on startup my computer grinds rather loudly, but it always stopped after about 2 minutes or less, but I have asked about this and people say it may be a wire possibly hititng the fan--but I couldn't find anything. That has been going on for 4+ months though.

A grinding sound is not real good. You did open the case and try to figure out the problem? A wire hitting a fan should be pretty obvious. A hard drive going bad can also make a noise like that. Or a fan bearing going bad.

List your components.

OK I looked at your sig. Those components are correct? Do you have the OS installed on that WD Green? If so that's a bad idea since that is a 5900RPM drive and quite a bit slower than even a budget 7200RPM drive would be. Those are storage grade drives and notorious for failing.

Yeah, those components are correct. And yes, unfortunately, I am using a WD green, at the moment in time I was on a bit of a budget, so I had to get that.

Hello Amort and Acrylik,
Yes a 5900 RPM is slow but and may be the cause to the issue as Amort suggested... Which by the way I am completely against anything that states "Green" on the packaging with a firm assumption that Manufacturers stating just this have tendancy to achieve new technologies less efficiency and second with random product sturdiness/life span.
The fact the HDD is slow has very little to do with the issue, yet I agree with Amort that can of drive should be pulled off shelves except perhaps for security camera storage drive and alike.

Also do you have an antivirus installed before the issue started to arise. Did you do a full cycle and check?
You used your PC for 9~10 months, do you install/uninstall often meaning leaving load/chunks of registry. Perhaps a good clean up of cache and registry "may" help.
I am nto a fanboy but I must say I am surprised by the efficiency of Norton 360. I just got lazy and got something ultra simple to use and pretty complete.
You can also try malwarebytes and see the report.

If anyone has better software suggestion to see if the issue is resources and virus related then go ahead...  

Hope this helps,
Seb