honey and sting

My laptop (IBM Thinkpad) works fine except when it doesn't. Periodically it gets so slowed down with something running in the background that it pretty much forces me to reboot. It also doesn't want to shut down, and when that happens, I end up just hitting the power button until it goes night night. Task manager lists "rundll32.exe" as the CPU hog. A quick google search throws up a bunch of articles claiming BOTH that this program is necessary for Windows operation, and that it is a worm (sometimes). My AV, spyware, and adaware programs aren't finding anything suspicious (yes they are all updated). There are ads in the google margins for removing rundll32.exe, but how am I supposed to figure out if I have the good one or the bad one? If it's the proper one, I shouldn't remove it. Then again, if it's the proper one, why is it hogging my CPU's like that? Any sane advice appreciated. Thanks! (Oh and avgw.exe -- another CPU hog, though it's only taking up 65%, unline the 99% consumption of the rundll32.)

Edited to add: Nebbermind on the avgw -- it's my anti-virus program. Ooops. *g*