Windows 2000 Services.Exe - 98% Usage

I am trying to get an old computer of mine up and running. It was Windows 2000 Professional installed on it with some software, but not much. The computer is running very, very slow. The task manager reveals that 90-98% of the system usage is by "services.exe". Virus, malware, etc. scans using Avira, Threatfire, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware…all come back negative for infections. PIII-1ghz, 384mb memory, 40 gb hd (75% free space)… Any ideas?

That doesn't mean it isn't an infection, no single piece of protection can catch everything, but having a few scanners increases the chances of catching most stuff between them, my best advice at this time is to get a check up by the pro's in the infection section, lets make sure you don't have an unknown lurking in the background, once you get the all clear, if the problem is still there we can move on, hope you get it sorted.

As I searched around I found this:

http://www.squidoo.com/100cpuservicesexe

Since my computer had Spybot on it, I uninstalled it. The computer then behaved normally. (Normal CPU usage)

I reinstalled Spybot with Internet Explorer Helper (SDHelper) turned off. Still functions normally.

Thanks for the help!

Good find. I stopped using Spybot a while back because the hosts file was getting ridiculously long, in excess of 12000 entries, even though I didn't see any significant system degradation, but that was with XP Pro, not W2K.