High CPU Usage

Hey there,

My laptop was working fine for over a year until a couple days ago. Very strange, after running anything graphics card related (i.e. playing a movie, running a computer game - and nothing intensive just Pro Evolution Soccer) for about five minutes, CPU Usage sky rockets to 80-100%, rendering the system unusable (game gets very laggy, same with movie). My computer will not return to normal until after about 15 minutes or so of closing the graphics card related process, the odd part is that even if I restart the computer the high CPU usage continues, I have to wait 15 minutes nomatter what I do.

This is getting very frustrating as I can no longer watch movies, play games etc.


System Specs..
Duo Core 1.8 ghz
1024mb RAM
100gb 7700 harddrive
ATI x1400

Thanks

 

Try booting in to fail safe mode and uninstalling the drivers, then reboot and reinstall.

 

Yeah the problem is driver related in many cases.

 

Not if the problem persists after rebooting.

I suspect it might be related to overheating. It gets so hot it starts underclocking the GPU and/or CPU, and that persists until it reaches a normal temp again. Of course, that shouldn't cause 100% CPU usage still... Maybe there's a driver bug so it doesn't correctly handle overheating?

 

I had a similar prob. I recently bought a Dell XPS Gen 2 laptop (second hand). First it was fine, but after updating the OS and the antivirus and installing some games, after I boot the laptop, my CPU usage goes to 100% even if its just been opened!! and I cannot do anything!!! like i cant open folders, programs, even shutting it down!!! I have to hold the power button for soime time. Then I saw a process eatiung up all the system resources that should belong to System idle - its the svchost.exe process. Also I noticed that it tries to update my laptop eventhough Im not connected to the net (I connect wirelessly). So I turned off my automatic updates and then, all is well, no more sky rocketing cpu usage.... Check which process is eating up your resource...

 

Weird... Windows Update shouldn't take that much resource. I fact, I barely notice it.

 

I had similar problem with the svchost.exe using 99% of my CPU power before.
First you need to try to identify which svchost.exe is causing the problem, as you can see there are many svchost.exes in your process thread.

Download a program called "Process Explorer" from SysInternals (Google it).
Then start the program immediately after you have reboot and wait and see which svchost.exe is using high CPU power. From there you can disable, stop and pause that particular string that is causing the problem.

Luckily for me, it was the Automatic Update thing. So, all I did was went to the online Microsoft Automatic Update webpage and uninstall it and reinstall it. It did take several tries to finally get it fixed.

Good Luck.

 

Already did that. Upgraded the Omega Drivers from 26something to the latest one, the problem persists.

I am going to try using the ATI one now.

 

hmmm.. that much actually be the problem, my house's aircon is broken right now and hence the room temperature is an unbarable 29.5 -32 degrees. I wonder if thats why my computer is screwing up.

 

Yea, I read about that too but I don't think its the problem with mine, seeing as SVCHOST doesn't appear to be eating up too much of the CPU usage and seeing as problems only appear after watching movies/playing games for 5-6 min.

 

Check the cooling guide and try monitoring your temperatures.

Also check in the Control Panel and see what your power settings are. Set them to Portable/Laptop in XP or if you use Vista, High Performance.

 

So if it's not svchost, which process *is* using all that CPU?

 

Definately a heat problem. I brought my laptop downstairs where its cooler, and experienced no problems.

Thanks for the headsup

 

I donnt believe its the temperature, I worked in rooms over 35C and the laptop still works perfectly, check whats eating up the cpu.
Edit, Just saw your last post, still quite werid how the computer will over heat at temperatures just over 30c.

 

Well, the room temperature doesn't matter in itself. It's the CPU temperature that's relevant. Of course the hotter the room is, the more the laptop is affected, but it only becomes a problem when the laptop's cooling can't keep up any more. Obviously your laptop is just better cooled than flamehawk's.

 

Look, I'm a newbie so there's a fair chance what I'm about to say is just plain wrong...

About a month ago, my computer was running fine and then almost overnight it started running at 100% CPU. Even shutting down everything down via msconfig (Diagnostic Startup) had no effect.

In the end, I took it to pieces out of sheer boredom and cleaned it out - especially the fans and heat sinks and presto! Worked perfectly ever since. Dont know why (unless there's some kind of thermal throttle control on my P4), but who cares...?