I've recently had some problems with low framerate and I discovered a funny thing. Every time I enter the stats menu my framerate drops from 20 to 10. Is this normal and is there a way to prevent it? It doesn't really make sence as the world around you pauses, you should be able to increae your framerate with the menu open, or is it just me who have misunderstood something?

Are you running mods? What type of mouse and are the drivers updated?

You could try for the interim:

http://planetelderscrolls.gamespy.com/View.php?view=utilities.detail&id=22

You can enhance the FPS in windows with this IIRC. Also, try reducing the menu transparency.

As far as I am concerned my framerate always goes up when I enter a menu in the game. So you did not misunderstood something I believe ^_^

But I believe doing what Miles_Acraeus says is a good start. If it doesn't work you can also try a reinstall but not sure how much that would work.

Also what are you computer specifications?

my frame rate also goes down when entering menus. however I have menu transparency pretty high and so many spells it takes me like a minute to go though all of them
It doesn't rally lag though, still very playable.