Thanks for all your help, much appreciated. 
Unfortunately I haven't been able to sort this yet.  I did rediscover 'reading' for a day or two, but bugger that ...I want to blow things up! lol 
- machine is not overclocked (that I know of, so i assume no)
- I checked those core temps, and there was no dramatic rise when gaming (4 - 6 degrees c) I guess that is ok (?).
- I did do a virus scan, nothing but a few cookies, not to say there isn't one though. My anti-virus expires in 2 days, so need a new one.
- I updated drivers after this started, no change.
- system restore didn't solve it
- don't know how to check graphics card memory either
- upped power profile from balanced to high performance, no change
- I don't think it is a routine maintanance thing as it happens at almost exactly the same instance everytime after starting the game (1 - 2 minutes) - at least it doesn't seem so to me.
- love to blame my gf, but it happens when she tucked up in bed.
- my modem mysteriously died this am, bought a new combined router/modem - that didn't fix it 
I took a pic of task manager a few seconds after going in and out of cod4. Looks bad to me. hmmm...
I don't know if providing my system specs help. The only thing 'significant' I can think of, that i did before this happened, was copy the main game folder of IL2 sturmovik (to switch between a modded version) and moved them here and there. Have no clue if this means anything, was just a lot of gigs going to and fro for a while.
 
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Then, after a minute, things back to normal, then slow again, etc.
(been alright in the past - seems plenty left on both drives) 
(no idea how you would test for that specifically)
