Hello,
A Hardware Interrupt is a "message" that the hardware will give the CPU saying that attention is needed somewhere else. For example, if your CPU is adding some numbers together, and something comes in on the serial port (such as a modem connection), the port will send an interrupt to the CPU, and ask it to read the data sitting in the buffer. Keyboards, mice, even the video cards have interrupts.
I think that you have an OS issue, as it is happening globally, and you are losing the battle with it. Because you mention that your computer is quite fast running one program, I am going to believe your hardware and RAM are alright.
If I were you, I would save off my data, and re-install from ground zero. As complex as windows is, you could spend the better part of another month trying to find it. Start clean.
Christian