System process

I need help with windoze. When I open task manager, the process "system" is constantly running at 99% and it won't go down. I don't know what wrong with it. It still runs at 99% when I start up in safe mode. This machine I'm working on is not mine, so a) I'm not going to install linux and b) no www.opera.com post. I would appreciate some help in fixing my "system" problem.

If you open up task manager, the process is just called "System." It does not say anything else, just "System." That is the process that is running at 99%. I know that System Idle Process SHOULD be running at 99% and that is normal.