Ubuntu :: 10.04: 100% Cpu Usage And Sound

I decided to upgrade my laptop from Ubuntu 9.10 to 10.04. Instead of using the upgrade feature, I backed up the important stuff and just did a clean install of 10.04. Issue 1: I was experiencing some performance issues with 10.04. I was getting 100% cpu usage reported by System Monitor. The 100% cpu usage, strangely enough, switched from CPU0 to CPU1, and back again sometimes. I don't know if there was a pattern to it. I also noticed video lag when using Super+E (or Window+E) to switch between desktops. This was running incredibly smooth on this laptop when I was using 9.10. I know it's just a minor issue, but the video in the laptop is more than powerful enough to handle it, and I'm worried about the performance having a bottleneck of some kind.

Issue 2: Trying to fix issue 1, I was googling around to find a solution. I found a thread on another site that suggested running a couple terminal commands to do something with Pulseaudio, I think. I wasn't familiar with the commands, as my Linux knowledge doesn't stray far from my generic list of fixes for things I've encountered. Here are the commands I ran:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-audio-dev/ppa
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

There may have been a couple other steps, however I cannot find the page anymore My sound still works, but I cannot control the volume with the icon in the system tray anymore. I had to download the Alsa Gui volume control to adjust the volume. My hopes for this thread: I would like to first know if anyone possibly understands what I may have done with Issue 2 (the sound issue)

And with Issue 1, have there been any reported performance bugs? 10.04 seems to run fine on my desktop, super smooth (including Window+E desktop switching). EDIT: I forgot to mention that the processes tab in System Monitor does not show any applications that are coming anywhere near the 100% cpu usage that the Resources tab is reporting.