Just to be informative of a few issues... well, two
Well, I went online yesterday and Ultimate Edition began an automated update (not to 2.6, of course) and installed a new kernel.
The CPU is - for want of a better phrase - out of sync with itself. Normally the two cores have the same percentage use, more or less, but since the update, there has been wild variation in that. Core 1 will be between 16% and 80+% while Core 2 will mostly be between 3% and 6%, sometimes 15% and 20%. This variation swaps over, of course, though not with any regularity. I have no idea if this is normal or not: It may be just that the updates are giving me a faster CPU% update time.
It seems to be a hell of a lot slower and, in some cases unresponsive, inclined to freeze . Software is taking longer to load, even with all effects disabled. Switching between applications is slow as well, taking about 5 seconds or more.
Oh well. Think I'll be sticking to the older kernel for a while... unless this is failing hardware