CPU Usage at 100% - Help

I have a fairly new vista, and last night i encountered a problem. I was trying to execute a game program but in the process of it starting up, i closed my lid and the computer went into sleep. After reopening it, i tried again to boot up the game and it said that two programs of it may already be running, or the dat file cannot be read. After that i noticed that there was a certain spike in my laptops performance, so i rebooted my computer. After my computer started running again, i tried accessing the file with the game in it, and my computer was so slow that it took almost 5 minutes just to get my documents listed. I looked at my windows sidebar app, and i saw my cpu usage was at 100%. I confirmed it using task manger at 100% as well. I ran avast, spybot, and prevx csi, and they show nothing. Yet to finish the avast scanner. Well i let just my avast scanner run in the menu, and when i looked at the cpu chart in task manger, i notice that the cpu usage level fluctuates from 100 to 50% at certain time intervals. Also i noticed that some processes have duplicates of them in task manager such as two rundll.32 (Windows Host Process) or two windows sidebars etc. Does anyone know whats happened? and how i can fix this?

 

Do you have SP1 installed. Also, do you have the latest Windows Updates?

Remember that Vista loves memory, so the more the better.

 

You forgot to tell which processes are taking 100% in the task manager!?

And it's normal to have several rundll32.exe up and running

 

Vista has its problems *sigh. Such a performance hog. Check the processes in task manager, find out where they come from by googling and see if its needed to run in the background. You can use services.msc in 'run' (windows key + R) to disable certain processes in the background. Search black viper to know which processes is safe to disable. There is also msconfig to check the startup processes, but only use msconfig if you know how to use it!

 

This is odd. The problem seems to have resolved. I left my laptop on for about 2 hours or so, when i returned, the cpu usage level has dropped dramtically and is only fluctuating to 100 every few minutes or so but then dropping down to zero and stayin in between the 10-40% range. I tried running a lot of progams to see if the laptop would screw up, and i even ran the game that wouldn't execute. Everything is working fine. Sorry for not posting what was taking up 100%, i just thought that the cpu usage level would be involving everything in the pc. At the moment explorer.exe is the highest. I will not assume that was the highest when my laptop was working strange, but it may have been. So far so good, ill monitor it for a day or 2 to see if anything happens again, i will repost in this thread if anything happens. Thanks for the replies

 

Just check what process is taking 100% cpu usage everytime that happens, and it's not that uncommon to see explorer.exe f*ck up and do that, it shouldn't.

What's your CPU-specifications? Are they low? If so it may be some task that is scanning the system for virus/spyware or something defragmenting the harddrives or something like that.

 

You mean use something like this ? Startup File Database

P.S. Why not try a restore to the day before it started playing up?

 

I running an Hp with windows vista sp1. 250gb Hardrive, 3g ram, 7150 nividia geforce 256mb. Amd Turion 64 x2 TL-60 Dual Core Processor.

 

The cpu usage spiked up today at school. I put my computer to sleep and then when i reponed my laptop, the computer seemed slow and was running at 100% cpu usage again. Explorer.exe being the highest.

 

Open the task manager and open the 'processes' tab. At the bottem click the 'show processes from all users' button. Then find the process that is using so much of your CPU.

Also, what 'game' are you trying to open. Does your laptop run at reduced performence on battery life (when you are experincing this)?

 

Well in terms of cpu, the most cpu consuming program would be explore.exe in terms of memory, dwm.exe has the highest. Today my i went through a system restore and evverything was working fine until i downloaded a new anitvirus. While scannning, cpu usage spiked to 100% again. This is really pissing me off because i got so much work to do and the laptop is acting this way at critical times. The game im trying to execute is guildwars. And i run on power saver 100% of the time in terms of battery. However everything runs smoothly even while im running on it before, so i dont think thats the cause.