Ticking Time bomb HELP!

I'm very new to the mac world. I purchased a new Blackbook from the apple store in early December 2007. Now three months later I am only getting a maximum battery life of 1 and a half hours. Also, the fans are constantly running and the computer itself seems to be getting louder everyday. I was sent a new battery to see if it was the battery causing the problem and with the new battery in nothing has changed. So far I've been really happy with it, but recently I feel as if I received a ticking time bomb. I am using it very sparingly and actually a little worried to even turn it on unless I have too. HELP PLEASE!

I will be calling apple support again as soon as they open.

I Spoke with support. I need to send it back in for repair. Very happy with their support.

Battery life will depend on what you do. If you watch a movie, it will only last an hour and a half. Same with the fans. If you're running intense apps, of course they'll run constantly.
Have you tried to calibrate the battery by draining it completely and recharged it fully?

this is with only the bare bones running. I shut down everything. If I turn on the computer and let it sit for a minute the fans will kick on and stay on. This is without running anything. They get louder the longer they run too. The battery tells me it will only last and hour and a half right off the start up without opening any programs AND it goes down much more rapidly than it says it will last. For instance, it will say 1:45 remaining and 5 minutes later say 1:15 min remaining only letting it idle. I'm sending it back for repair tomorrow so hopefully they'll fix the problem. Thanks for the reply though!

Did you put one of those hard cases on it?

nope no silly hard case. I've been extremely careful with it as it's my first mac too. It started, it seems, out of nowhere. Just turned it on one day and noticed low battery life and the fans being constantly on. It lives mostly on a cool granite surface.

it sounds to me you have a process that runs at startup that is maxxing your cpu out.

run activity monitor, sort by cpu usage, and report back with maybe a screenshot.

this would explain the fan on high all the time, along with the crummy battery life.

here's a screenshot of the activity monitor. it looks like somethings hogging it but I can't figure out what
http://www.vewdo.com/Picture 1.png

One core is running at full strength but nothing in there shows up.
Dashboard client is just Dashboard, right? Do you have a lot of widgets going??

for a little while I was running a few, but since I've noticed this I've quit all of them. Even the calender is off

Have you backed up all your data and tried reformatting?
A backup is a must before you send it in anyways. Apple isn't responsible for any data loss.

I didn't try that. I'm not experienced enough with macs that I'd feel comfortable doing it. Compared to some people I've barely even used it yet for only having it for only three months. I am going to back up everything I need off of it tonight though since I'm sending it back tomorrow. Thanks for the help.