Issues, Workarounds & Localization

When I warp to an exploration site or an asteroid belt my system often grinds to a halt when the rats there start shooting, especially if it's the first time I've gotten shot at since I logged onto EVE. As far as I can tell my CPU and graphics card are not overheating, but GPU and CPU usage both spike to nearly 100%. If I wait it out performance generally returns to normal, but often my computer is unusable for at least a couple of minutes. I've updated Windows and my graphics card drivers with no improvements. I've also turned down the level of graphic detail in the game with no luck, and cleared the game's cache. Any suggestions for what might be causing this?

-Intel E6750
-Radeon HD 6700
-Windows XP SP3