In Windows 7, Emacs hangs for 4 to 10 seconds every few minutes. Tried emacs and runemacs from the Windows GUI via mouse clicks.
Then from the cmd tried them again.
Then tried emacs -Q and runemacs -Q from cmd.
Tried downloading Cygwin and then emacs from inside Cygwin.
Haven't had any problems from in Cygwin in the same version, 24.3.1.
This is a work machine and have only had it for a few days, so I am not entitled to full freedom/control over it and it is possible something is wrong with the machine (well, don't get me started =D ). Happy to try other options.
Definitely don't have this issue anywhere else (such as Trisquel). Definitely seems to be Windows related.