Dell Latitude E6500: High on CPU + How to format? ++ other Questions

I am sorry if I'm asking noobish questions, but here it goes...

I have an E6500 which I bought from Dell not that many months ago. The thing I want to know is why the CPU is on 17, 20, 30, 15, 25, 15, 32, 22, 18, 13, 8, 9, 16 % etc ... almost all the time. Is there something I can do to "fix" this, so it is relatively steady on 3-5%, 6-10% as my "old" Dell Latitude D620 is (purchased in 2006/2007 some time)? On the E6500 I have a CPU desktop gadget recently installed so that I can watch the CPU thing more often. Due to the CPU "issue", the fan is on a lot, and spitting out much hot air out of the exhaust pipe to the left of the laptop. I usually keep a book under the back of the laptop so that the fan can get more airflow underneath as well.

If I open my web browser (newest Firefox version) and opens another tab, the CPU goes up 2-3% for each tab I think. This is not an issue with my other D620, where I today have had like 15-20 tabs open in Firefox all day (researching something) and the CPU is on 2, 7, 12 % ...

I'd be really glad to figure this "mystery" out, so that my soul can relax once again. Thanks alot.

System Information

OS Name: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P9700 @ 2.80GHz, 2801 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA Quadro NVS 160M
SMBIOS Version: 2,4
RAM: 4,00 GB

I have the Trend Micro PC-Cillin installed (as so on my other computer (Latitude D620) aswell).

I have the AdBlock Plus installed on my newest version of Firefox.
I opened the prosess tab, and clicked on the show processes from all users (even though there is only 1 user on the laptop?) and programs that seem to be using CPU is TMBMSRV.exe (2, 4, 1, 2, 4..), sidebar.exe (3, 4, 3, 2 etc), taskmgr.exe (0, 2, 0, 1), SMManager.exe (2, 1, 2, 0...), SfCtlCom.exe (up to 5 and then 0), csrss.exe (0, 1 (sometimes) ), lsass.exe (0, 1, 0), svchost.exe (1, 0, 1, 2, 0..), wmiprvse.exe (0, 1, 2, 1, 0...)

Also, FireFox uses some CPU, but just "normal usage" (5, 0, 3, ...) Depends.

I'd really like to sort out this 'issue', that's one of the things why I joined NBR.com. Other reasons are that I want to learn more about computers, hardware, software etc.

Another question; how can I format the laptop if I need to do that? I did not get a re-format-CD when I bought the computer from Dell. Do people make their own format-CD’s or what? And how? Please tell me, I am new to this.

Thanks a lot!

 

The easiest way to see what is loading the CPU is to open the processes tab in Task Manager and then (under the options heading) enable the CPU time column. Also enable Show processes for all users. This shows the total CPU time used by each process.

John

 

1. There is no Option > Enable CPU Time under options. There is just "Always on top", "Minimize on use", "Hide when minimized" and "Show 16-bit tasks". I really want to calm the CPU and fan down on this computer. The fan is not that loud now, but I feel it can get a little more quiet (calmed down) than it is now.

2. how can I format the laptop if I need to do that? I did not get a re-format-CD when I bought the computer from Dell. Do people make their own format-CD’s or what? And how? Please tell me, I am new to this.

 

Sorry. It is View > Select Columns.

Do you have the Dell Backup and Recovery Environment Installed? Dell should have put a factory image in a hidden partition.

John

 

Here is a PrtScr of my CPU window.

 

The Firefox CPU usage looks reasonable as a proportion of the overall on time. I also run the FlashBlock add-on since Flash can hit the CPU. Spikes in the FF CPU usage are to be expected. Some web pages periodically check for updates.

Windows Sidebar is the next biggest CPU user. The other big CPU user is the Trend AV. I use NOD32 because it does an effective job with low resource usage (Task manager shows about 10 minutes out of 120 hours).

Another way to monitor your CPU temperatures would be to use RMClock. This can put data on the task bar which may use less system resources than your sidebar application. And you may want to look into undervolting the CPU which is an effective way to drop the temperature.

John

 

Why does the Dell webcam application use 30 % CPU? I mean, when doing nothing with the PC without any web-browser or other programs running, it's using 3, 7, 10, 5, 8, 4, 10 % CPU... And I tested to just open the Dell webcam central program, and this was the result (picture). When playing games like Counter-Strike 1.6, I don't necessarily have a high ping, but the gameplay feels laggy and the laptop gets hot (high CPU i assume). There is something wrong here, the CPU matter.

When I'm watching videos on YouTube the CPU is up to 40% to 60%, going up and down like that. I have AdBlock Plus on my Firefox, preventing unwanted flash-ads etc. But I just can't make the CPU go down!! It's very annoying.

Please help, I really want to get rid of this problem.

Edit: My friend's laptop is stable on 2-3% while doing nothing, and a little over 10% or something while surfing the web/watching YouTube. The same with my older Latitude D620. But not with my brand spankin new Latitude E6500 (this makes me sad).

 

We need to check that the CPU is not being throttled due to the BIOS thinking that there is an overheating problem. There have been instances of throttling problems on the E6x00 series. And, if the CPU is being throttled, then any process takes a much larger proportion of the CPU time.

You can check this using the monitoring page of RMClock. Look at the first row and see of the numbers in the first and second columns are the same. If they are the same then there's no throttling. If the second number is lower then the CPU is being throttled.

John

 

Call Dell and ask them for an OS DVD. You might have to pay a small fee for it.

Download the latest drivers from dell.com Support for your model or for your service tag, AND for your OS. You might want to get Intel chipset and IRST/SATA drivers from Intel.com (and switch your BIOS SATA to AHCI). And nVidia drivers from nVidia.com (will lose audio out on displayport).

Then review the Dell re-image guide (see my notes linked below) and use all to re-image your hard drive... that's when you format the HDD... during the Windows install.

Do you have the Dell Webcam Central CD?

GK

 

No, I don't, because everything came installed on the computer when I bought it from Dell.

Here John, I uploaded 3 pics of the monitoring section (approx 1 minute differ from the PrtScr's). I do not really know what they mean... Hope you guys can draw some conclusions out from there prtscr's, so that we can resolve this stupid thing. I only had Mozilla Firefox open with 3 tabs when taking a prtscr (Yahoo.com, this thread and wikipedia.org)