When I log into my computer, it works fine for me. But when I log in as my Wife, AOL eats up the whole CPU (it reads at 100% all of the time) and runs very slowly.

I did the whole "CTRL-ALT-DELETE" thing and saw that some AOL program was using like 97-98% of the power. But only when she's logged in.

How do I stop this so that she can have a decent computer experience?

TIA

have you ran an ad-ware, spyware, and virus scan?

suggestion: if you can get dsl in your area dsl is cheaper than aol for its intro price then I think not more than a few $ more after that, better speed and you do not have to deal with that bloated aol

That's just it!

We have that Optimum triple play deal with high speed cable access. It works great, but she pays a small fee to have access to her old AOL mail. I can't imagine that is what is slowing her down so much though.

and I have run AdAware, an antivirus program, and even ccleaner. Things run fine when I'm logged in, but slow as anything when she is.

If it's not a temporary activity (and it doesn't seem to be, since you say it happens all the time), then it may be an adware, or something undesired (such as a buggy program performing operations in an infinite loop), at least. If it was a software update or something like that, it would finish sooner or later.

CPU usage has nothing to do directly with the type of your internet connection, though the stuff that belongs to it (software, etc.) may be related, as SirKill says (e.g. a buggy program).

If you know which process does it, why not to kill it? (just as the first attempt, to make sure that's responsible for the very high CPU usage)

I did that. Now I'm wondering if it'll happen again next time she logs in.

What I'm getting at is that I am trying to permanently fix a problem, insetead of having to kill this program every time.

hit Alt Crtl Del then click the processes tab see what is using the cpu/ram and do a google search on it see if any one else had that problem (that is what I have done in the past) unless of course it just says aol
also you should get Spybot

EDITreading back looks like you did something like that

If it has happened earlier in case of each login, it will arise next time too.

Try to find which process starts it (e.g. messenger). Close that task (in regular way), and see if the problematic process still remains (it should not).

so did this ever get cleared up?

I don't think the problem has popped up again, but I'm not positive. My Wife and I have both been so busy since Christmas.