Pavillion running XP has CPU at 100%

[Thomas Simkiss]

I have seen several posts like this, but none with the exact issue, so here it is:

I am running XP on my machine. For eight months it was running fine. The exact day my McAfee Virus scan on-line subscription is over, I boot the PC up and the CPU usage it at 100%. It runs too slow to do anything.
I have since resigned up for Virus Scan on-line, and have scanned it using McAfee, Norton, and SCANPM ( a DOS scanning tool from McAfee).
No viruses found.
The CPU is always at 100%, even if I have nothing running and I leave it alone for hours.

I am lost as to what to do, any suggestions?

[Ron Kinner]

Remove the McAfee and see if that helps. I've seen that cause high cpu load before.

Ron

[Dave Palica]

Open the task manager, click on the "Processes" tab, and click on the "CPU" label at the top of the window. This will sort the running processes by CPU usage. The "System Idle" process on a normal machine should be the top candidate. This will give you a good indication where the actual problem is.