T61 CPU Usage Issue

Hey guys.

I would like to start off by saying I love this site and these forums. For every problem or question I've typed into Google about my Thinkpad T61, I am usually pointed here, with a great answer. I just signed up since I have a question of my own that I can't seem to figure out.

Here's an overview of what's going on. I have a Lenovo T61 that isn't even a year old yet. Just last weekend I did a clean, factory reformat since I felt it was time. Anyways, after upgrading all of my Lenovo software and performing all of the necessary Windows updates, there is something I notice that kinda bugs me that I can't figure out.

For some reason, sometimes when I unplug the power cord and go to battery power OR vica verca, my CPU usage will all of the sudden hover around 20-40%. Normally, it is around 0-4% idle. If I restart my computer, the problem usually goes away. If I'm on battery and I experience the problem, and then plug it in, it does NOT go away unless I do a restart.

This problem is random, sometimes it doesn't happen. As I'm writing this it is hovering around 42% cpu usage and I only have Firefox open (something is eating up my resources). According to task manager, the only thing using resources is System Idle Process.

Here are my specs:

Windows XP Professional w/SP3
Intel Core 2 Duo CPU T9300 @ 2.50 GHz (stock)
3GB RAM
Intel GMA x3100 Graphics Media Accelerator

I have reason to believe its something with the graphics causing this problem. After upgrading the graphics drivers, I notice on this format that under the graphics information, there is about 41MB of graphics memory in use all the time, when it used to only say 8MB. Not sure though.

Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks.

 

Download Process Explorer from Microsoft, and then run it. Check to see what is hogging your CPU - my bet is that "Hardware Interrupts" is using a lot of CPU, indicating some hardware driver issue. Another possibility is that the Intel graphics driver is consuming a lot of CPU, which I believe is an issue in one of the newer driver versions.

 

Thanks for such the quick reply.

It seems that you were right. I downloaded the program and it says "Hardware interrupts" is taking about 30-40% of my CPU (just like you said).

For fixing this, should I just rollback the driver? If so, do you know where I can find the older drivers?

 

Bump...

Does anyone know where I can find older Lenovo drivers?

 

You might let us know. why you asked.

 

What do you mean?