Question Stutter freezing every few seconds

[achubbypaanda]

Hi, my girlfriends laptop is having an issue where every few seconds the entire OS will stutter for a second before continuing to work. (mouse freezes, audio stutters) I booted it into safe mode only for the issue to be completely non existent. I'm not really sure what that implies, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

 

[rgd1101]

malware scan?
check ram/ssd/cpu usage?