XP CPU Usage 100% - No Fix ??

[jim peak]

Situation: Pavilon 520C, AMD 1.6GHz, 504Ram, tons of disk space.

Problem: CPU usage stays at 100%.

Attempts to resolve:

Per review of other threads, (1) have looked for pctspk.exe and couldn't find it, (2) uninstalled mcafee virus (3) uninstalled voice recognition software that came with machine (4) attempted to modify registry to rename pctspk.exe to something voice.exe (again, this entrty did not exist).

Restarted the PC after each software package was uninstalled.

Details:
In task manager, there are 30 processes running. tskmgr.exe fluctuates between 65 and 70% usage, with about 3 or 4 other processes chewing up the remaining 30% or so. The machine has functioned beautifully until 4 days ago, according to user, "nothing changed".

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Ron Kinner]

Sounds like a virus.

Try http://housecall.antivirus.com/


Also try downloading ZoneAlarm from www.zonelabs.com. Most viruses these days like to go out on the net and when they do ZoneAlarm will flag them.


Could also be some spyware got its hooks in your machine. Go to www.lavasoftusa.com and get ad-aware. It will scan your system and help you remove anything it finds. (server is down today but should be back up soon.)

Ron

[Ron Kinner]

Try http://www.lavasoft.nu/ for ad-aware. The old site is still not working.

Ron

[Ken Yankee]

Good advice from previous poster.
What OS are you running? Must be NT or XP because you mentioned task manager. Click on the "CPU" column and that will sort the higher processes so you can see who is chewing the most. Definetely virus scan the system. Investigate the high usage task(s) and see if you need them to even be running. (Turn off their service or change them to manual)

If your running XP, check this site for service references -
http://www.overclockersclub.com/windowsxpservices.shtml
Ken

[jim peak]

Ran PC-cillin, no viruses present.

Ran ad-ware, 202 componenets identified. Backed them up, then removed. One component, BabyIE could not be removed.

After both attempts, restarted machine, same problem exists.

Again, in task manager, tskmgr.exe is using 65-75% of the cpu.

I hate to break out the recovery disks and set the machine back to original settings, but at this point it seems that might be the only solution.
Anyone have any other ideas??

Thanks in advance.

[Gareth van Oosterhout]

i was having a similar problem (explorer suddenly useing 99% cpu), i am connected to a network of over 100 pc's, i had a folder (named 'shared' but not actually shared) that contained 3 shared folders and heaps of sub-folders. these 3 folders were originally on my desktop but i put them in the 'shared' folder to neaten things up a bit, thats when the problem started, if i so much as touched the 'shared' folder or any sub-folders, or any files in them, then the cpu would shoot up to 99% and stay there until a reboot. It wasnt a virus (i ran a scan), or anyone accesing my hdd (happened when network cable was unplugged). It took me a week before i tried putting the 3 shared folders back on the desktop, and deleting the 'shared' folder, and now the problem is gone, i havent had any worries for the last day, so i assume its gone.
hope this helps a little.

[Tim Gordon-Jones]

I am having the same problem and have found the file on the DELL resource CD. It appears to be the PCTEL modem driver. Don't know why it should be consuming so much resource and why it has only just started. It is the latest version.
In case it helps this is the location on the CD.
E:\DELL\DELLResourceCDContents\Files\R36789\A05

PLease let me know if you have found anything else since the last update.

Regards,
tim Gordon-Jones
Timgj@ics-solutions.co.uk

[John Bolene]

Had that problem after a reboot when defrag and cleanmgr were competing.

Killed both and the machine is normal again.

What are the other processes taking time?

[Jon Finley]

One thing that can affect the system is if the "User" had a shortcut or link out to another machine on the network. If the network changes, or the "shared" machine goes away, windows will still try to validate the link. The result is that the CPU gets chewed up.


Jon

[Carmelo Grecia_1]

Hi,

You would have to shut of some services.

Go to this site to learn more:

http://www.blackviper.com

-Carmelo

[Hoover]

Removing WildTangent from my system eliminated the problem for me. The problem was intermitten, but when it did occur WidlTangent Cmd Mgr was always 'hung up' in the background.

I hope that helps. I know how frustrating such a thing can be.

[Kurt Matthies]

A caveat on BlackViper.com.

I've looked at his "services" table page. You could get in trouble disabling some of the services he recommends disabling.

His configuration is strictly standalone computing. He is not networked, and is using dialup networking.

So, if you are in a corporate enviroment or even running a small lan, be careful about taking some of his advice.

By the way, I don't know about XP. Does Task Manager run all the time? It seems to me you've got a bit of the observability thing going on here. Task Manager is using most of the resources while it is checking to see who is using all the resources.

Of course on my machines, it rarely uses more than 30% maximum and that's only when it loads.

[Geoff Nathan]

Running XP, if I logon to the computer the cpu usage is OK at 1%. If I logon to the network it jams at 100%. I have run Sophos virus scan, disabled the network card and rebooted and enabled, and nothing chnages the cpu usage of 100%. I have tried stopped every service I can and still I get 100%. What else can I do?

[Ron Kinner]

Bad form to tack on a question to someone else's post. Better to start a new thread and refer back to the old one. That way you can assign points to the replies.

That said: Have you done everything that was recommended to the original poster?

Ron

[Paul Sohnly]

Hello, I am having a similar problem except; My PC is home built with a P4 1.6 Northwood, Asus MB DDR 2100. I have re installed XP 3 times, the last time I only added Office 2000 and NTI burning software. My CPU usage in task manager shows 99% is used by the system. The PC will run fine for a few hours and the run slow. If I reboot everything is fine but problem will start re-occuring more frequently. I am thinking it is a hardware problem now. I have 3 cooling fans plus a hard drive cooler, I physically check for hot spot when this happens and everything is cool. If anyone has suggestions I would be gratefull. I have run 2 Macaffee and PC cillian virus W/latest definitions also adware. I am going to start swapping out parts but WXP it is a hassell, gotta call mommy(Bill.)

[Tom Draper]

I too am having the "cpu usage 100%" problem on a system with a P4 1.6 and an asus mb--am using wxp pro. Perhaps we are onto something--star crossed hardware? I have been all over google looking for answers, tried everything suggested, nothing has worked yet. Of all I have seen, Mr. Sohnly's post best matches my problem. Sorry to be but a mere consumer of knowledge rather than a giver.

[Paul Sohnly]

Tom,
I have mine fixed by turning off System Restore and installing SP1. Also you should update your MB bios.
Paul

[Jim Adcock_1]

I had a similar problem with my sony vaio notebook running XP pro. Whenever I was disconnected from the network the CPU went high and the disk chewed like mad. I searched high and low on the net for solutions, tried disabling services, etc to no avail. A previous post by Jon Finley in this thread helped immensely. I have a home network and a number of the machines I'd connect to were listed under "My Network Places". I assume windows was trying to reconnect to these drives - no network - no joy. So I removed them from "My Network Places" and lo and behold CPU down to normal and the disk stopped chewing. Can't say definitively why, but this solution worked for me and solved a long-standing headache. HTH.

[Jia Jun Tse]

I hope this helps, but I noticed something in my task manager under the process tab. I currently have like 37 processes running, of which most of them either use 02 or less of the CPU. When I scrolled down, I noticed something called "system idle process." This single process eats up from 70 - 99 percent of my cpu usage. However, it's only using 20 K under mem usage. I definitely think system idle process has something to do with cpu usage going up to 100%.

Another thing. I opened up task manager, and minimized it in the background while I play a game. After like 30 minutes of gametime, the game prematurely exits without any error message and shows me to the desktop. At that point, I noticed that my cpu usage history is sky high. a straight line at 100. This is probably what's causing most games to exit after a short while. This is one more additional piece of information that should be taken into consideration.

Jia

[Jay Bollyn]

Jia,

System Idle Process is a process that automatically runs when no other process is running (when the system is idle). (The processor architecture requires that *some* process be running at all times.) The percentage range you are seeing is normal.

I don't have any experience with games.

:-) Jay

[Breijs]

I don't have solutions but an identical problem.

System idle is about 99%. After I start a movie AVI format or AVI (DIVX) format, the explorer is using 99%. There is no difference if the AVI-movie is played with Windows media player, Real one player or Power DVD. All has the same result. After stopping the movie the explorer stays at 99% and the system is very slow. The bypass I use is, ending with windows task manager the explorer proces and start in windows task manager tab-applications a new one.

Does someone knows a real solution? Except Movix ;)

[Judy Long]

Again... Same problem with no solutions.

Using XP Pro

I have, and have updated and rerun, Norton Antivirus.

Zone Alarm has been in place for quite a while.

It will jump to approx. 100% (process = "SYSTEM") for seemingly no reason - correlating with nothing in particular. Or... mysteriously drop back to zero.

I had this problem months ago... but it went away. It's back.

I recently installed a cable modem to another computer in the house and set up a wireless system to this computer. Maybe that's related.

[Breijs]

Judy,

it could be related because I am working also wireless last months. The changes on my system is to much to relate to one single installation.

With a new installation I will be very keen on wireless. Thanks.

[Perignon]

HI GENTS,

I'SUGGEST THAT SOME CLEAN-UP BE APPLIED TO THIS THREAD, SINCE I'M NOT SURE THAT ALL THE SITUATIONS DESCRIBED ARE TOTALLY SIMILAR.

SUPPOSING THAT YOUR SYSTEM IS VIRUS-SAFE.

At the first hand, you may consider whether or not the 100% CPU usage results in a slow-down effect. Actually many sources of problem may co-exist, thus requiring a step-by-step exploration of the system.

1-RAM. XP would require 128Mb of RAM for its proper usage. Means that any computer hosting a lower size of RAM will sollicitate the CPU intensively. Even within the 128Mb range, other memory-demanding programs will burn out most of the CPU capacity. Also, such programs would steadily swap onto the HD to compensate for lack of physical memory, thus fragmenting the disk drastically.

2-XP & BIOS. Older models of computer require that the BIOS be updated prior to hosting XP.

3-Jam. Many programs may start at the same time without being sollicitated manually. It is therefore recommended that all and any programs which can be otherwise activated from the desktop be unmarked from the task manager or MSCONFIG\Selective start-options. Exceptions to that rule are : System Tray, Load Power Profile and Net/Virus security programs.

4-Badly installed/uninstalled programs and drivers. Corrupted files as well as obsolete entries in the Registry are very common sources of wasted CPU-capacity associated with slow-down effects. For example, the system is constantly trying to compensate for or repare missing files, whose entries are still present in the registry. Waste of time and capacity.

5-Restore programs at odds and/or constantly working at the background of the system. Gnawing at the CPU and RAM capacity is a typical symptom of some Sysmantec or Norton facilities, which would run many functions at the same time such as: disks watching; anti-virus; firewall; systematic backup; etc...Should be better set on "manual control" where appropriate.

That's all folks. Hope this can help some of you.

Regards.
Alain.