CPU running 100% at idle.Can't find a problem.

I have ran anti virus,adware,spyware programs for the past six hours.I have shut down everything I can and my CPU is running at 100% constantly,even when my pc is at idle.Here's the run down on the pc.

Celeron M 520 1.6gb processor
2gb memory(up from 512mb) this is an old upgrade
Vista Basic 32bit
80gb hard drive

back ground programs
Avast Anti Virus
Webroot Spy Sweeper anti spy/adware
Mail.com notifier
Intel Graphics Accelerator
File Hippo
Windows Side Bar

I recently had my pc crash (full partition) and had to do a reinstall of Vista.I had the same set up and didn't have a problem.Now my CPU is running full tilt.I did the Vista tweaks as described in the OS section.I redone them after the reinstall.Anyone have any idears why this might be happening? :confused2:

 

Open up your Task Manager? Are any of the processes taking up 50% or 100%?

 

Check this out!I don't understand this.Check the pic.

 

thats system idle process, its supposed to be very high. Do you feel that your laptop is slow or how do you know its at 100%

can you get a picture of task manager when you are at 100%?

 

Ask and ye shall receive.This is at idle with just the basics running in the back ground.

 

What does the processes tab look like when that's happening? It's not just System Idle Processes anymore, is it?

 

yeah a picture of the processes tab will help, sorry if I confused you

 

There's a couple things that occasionally hit 03 but side bar frequently hits 51.

 

One trick I have used it to add I/O WRITE to the list of columns in the processor tab and then sort from high to low. This usually gives a good picture of what is happening. VIEW/SELECT COLUMNS/IO Writes. Good luck.

 

I posted a pic of that above.It was the only thing that was high.Everthing else was 03 or lower except side bar and it frequently hit 51.

 

are you sure its system idle?

take a look at my screeny its really high too yet my cpu usage isnt shooting up. Does your laptop feel slow when this is happening, and also is this a recent problem or have you had it for a while

http://img291.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenyzz7.jpg

 

Is this how you're doing it?I couldn't get it to list high to low.I'll keep trying tho.

 

what you do is click the cpu tab on the top it will sort it from either ascending or descending. just take a screeny of when you cpu usage spikes to 100% and make sure the screeny is on the most cpu usage tasks.

 

This is a recent problem it happen after a crash that prompt me to reinstall Vista.Recovery didn't work.The crash happened after Vista updated.It over fill the C partition on my hard drive.Since the reinstall a few weeks ago I have set up my computer to it's previous state,without all my personal data on it.

 

This is not difficult



Take a screenshot, of the processes tab, during one of the 100% spikes. See how I illustrate it.

 

actually im wondering if it could do with vista reindexing his whole drive while he is working

try this hit your windows key+r at the same time

this should open up a run menu

type in "Services.msc", something should pop up with a list of services

scroll down and look for a service called "Windows Search"

right click->properties

change startup type to disabled and stop the service, this can be reenabled later so dont wnorry

 

I get what you guys are telling me.It's just not hanging up at 100%.It's been doing it off and on,but right now it's not spiking and holding there.I will keep at it, when it spikes and hangs I will get a snap shot

 

That was one of my first tweaks.It is disabled.

 

hmm then a picture of your process list when it spikes will probably be the most useful, im still wondering though does it just spike or is your computer actually slow?

 

I won't lie.This machine isn't very fast, but I have(or had) no problems with speed.Now when the CPU hits 100% and hangs,it can take over a minute for a folder to open, after I've clicked on it.Internet is fairly fast also.I have 6megs service and can usually download at 7.2megs.That has since went down to 200 to 300K.I think the internet issues are related to the CPU spikes.I was planning on upgrading the CPU to a t7200 or t7600 Core Duo,but I'd like to find out why the CPU keeps spiking.I'd hate to drop a wade of cash on a processor just to find out I have bigger issues.

 

Thanks for the help.

I gotta get some zzzzz's.I'll work a little more on this and report back tomorrow.

 

oh no I wasnt suggesting your cpu wasnt slow, I was wondering if the cpu spikes seen on task manager actually slowed down your computer from its normal speed. Have you tried updating the drivers on your wireless card and also your ethernet card?

[EDIT] best of luck tomorow

 

wow 71 processes at idle! lol

 

Click on the column name and it will toggle. Looks to me like Spysweeper is doing a scan. That can slow things down for sure

 

I had the same problem with my desktop last week :\
I couldn't find any solution. I searched for everything several times viruses, spyware, drivers problems, killing all the processes, registry errors. nothing. I had to format. Then when reinstalling I found out that one of my hard drive was full of errors. I changed the hard drive and problem solved.

 

Here it is.Everything was shut down but the CPU hung up at 100% for nearly 5 minutes at idle.Looks like Firefox isn't shutting down completely.

 

Is FireFox actually running when you take that sceenshot? And then what version? I read somewhere that some flash ads (on NBR to boot) will cause browsers to ramp up the CPU usage while they run.

 

please try the PROCESSXP [sysinternal] (i dunno if there's a vista version of it yet)
instead of taskmanager.

sometimes, your hardware (interrupts) will eat up your CPU due to poor driver/firmware/hardware combination.

sometimes my gigabyte GBB36X (hdd) controller goes haywire after resuming
from hibernate and eats up CPU like hell until i restart or remove this device.

this can only be seen with processXP. task manager wont show this.

 

Yes, listen to gary_hendricks's advice. Occasionally, hardware interrupts will consume 100% of your CPU, and the only way to stop it is to restart (or toggle into and out of standby) your computer.

Only ProcessExplorer will show this, so download it here. It is compatible with Vista, 32 and 64 bit.

 

No.everything is shut down and my pc is at idle.I am running version 3.0.5.3.1 will not work correctly on my pc.Yep,flash ads kill my speed,but that's not a factor in what's going on with my pc.

I will do a search for processxp.What source do you use to download it from?


Thanks everyone for the help.

 

Thanks.I just downloaded it and will be using it.

 

just download the whole Sysinternals Suite from here: http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/SysinternalsSuite.zip

there are some very handy tools in there....

 

Can some one ID these two start up items?The SeaWolf item I think was my problem.Not 100% on that.The top one with Chinese writing maybe something to do with Acer systems.I also updated every driver in my computer one at a time.I had about 20.Most were for mobo functions.PCI,ATA,USB,and storage controllers.

 

http://majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

HijackThis is always a good choice to run in general.

Although if I had to venture a guess, your hard drive is being choked with non-sequential writes and it's causing CPU spikes and freezing.

Your symptoms sound very similar to what happens to some SSD users.

 

I ran it and didn't find anything unusual.I did save a log file.

 

I've had this trouble with Hardware Interrupts on occassion (although it only maxes out 1 core in my case).

A quick toggle into and out of standby always fixes the problem. However, I have been unable to find the root cause.

Also, Firefox is rather notorious for maxing out a core, this is especially true if you have lots of tabs open and/or any of those sites use flash. For this reason, the FireFox plugin NoScript can be quite useful for restricting CPU usage, ads, and maximizing battery life (very important to me).

 

I think a clean install will help.

 

Clean install of what?I just did a clean install of Vista,after a crash, and reinstalled all of my previously used programs.So everything is fresh.