Hello! A virus is definitely not out of the question. I presume you use firefox more often, in that case you can disable internet explorer all the same.
Looking at the screenshot IE runs implicitly, apparently started by u and is definitely occupying most of your CPU.
From your query, there is a high probability your system is infected with malware and if this is not resolved ASAP ur system will grind to a halt!
Here are some suggestions:
1) Try getting a copy of McAfee virus scan / Norton Anti-virus (some of these offer a 30 day trial but its best obtaining your own copy) and update this with the latest virus definitions to capture more recent threats.
If you do not have this, and maybe a friend does, ask him/her to scan ur computer using theirs. They will have to access the 'c$' (\\<your Ip address>\c$) share on your computer and run a virus scan on that drive. To accomplish this all necessary permissions have to be granted prior and pcs will have to be on the same network to avoid complexities.
2)In the meantime you should STOP the service running IEXPLORE.EXE.
If you are using Vista, Open up the task manager, right-click on any one of the IE process and select go to service. When on the relevant screen, right-click again and select stop service.
On other systems you may have to manually stop the processes by right-clicking and selecting 'End Process'.
3) You can also set the priority level of the IEXPLORE.EXE to 'below Normal or Low'. This however might be ineffective depending on the nature of malware you have on your system. Since it strives to use most of your CPU thne the malware is self-adjusting.
4)To better manage process runs, i would also look at two sysinternal tools - process explorer. These tools are available for free download from Microsoft Technet, i have supplied direct links to the zip files: Process Explorer:
http://download.sysinternals.com/Fil...ssExplorer.zip
and Autoruns (which displays all your processes - at boot time, run time, drivers etc):
http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/Autoruns.zip
Hope this helps and Good Luck!