getting internet to work in diagnostic startup

on vista when attempting to run diagnostic startup through msconfig i can't seem to figure out what all needs to be enabled to run this mode while being able to detect my wireless network. i played around with it with about 10 restarts before giving up.

 

Run MSCONFIG
Click the Boot tab
Tick Safe Boot
Select Network

OK, then restart

 

i don't want to run in safemode though.

 

What are you trying to do in Diagnostic Startup with the network? You might find better help if you explain the situation.

 

well i'm just overwhelmed by the state my computer is in. it's an hp dv7-1170us. decent processor 4gb of ram, yet the "cpu usage" is being bogged down never less than 50% even when none of my standard programs are running. all i do on this is run firefox, msn, and foobar or media player classic. i'm not sure what needs disabling and uninstalling to get things running smoothly and figured a diagnostic startup strips everything away without accidentally tampering with something important. i have no idea what any of the stuff running is. SstpSvc, nsi, LanmanWorkstation, EventSystem, etc are but they seem to be but they're what's taking most under services and i can't disable them.

 

why obsess over a cpu number? Is the system responsive and can you get your work done? What makes you think something 'bad' is occurring?

 

my browser temporarily freezes with more than one tab open. my music skips, my video skips. my computer is running slow as hell.

 

none of which points to a cpu load problem.

What kind of machine, OS, network connection, other software loaded, etc.

 

Really? You don't see a cpu that NEVER drops below 50% usage as some sort of issue?

To the OP, that is not normal. It should NOT stay above 50% usage all the time. But the best way to find out what is causing this is to get a copy of Sysinternals Process Explorer. It will allow you to isolate what process or service is eating up CPU cycles like that. You can get it here:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

It works a lot like task manager. If you notice that an instance of svchost.exe is the culprit. Double click on that instance and Process Explorer will open up a view to the specific services that that instance is hosting. Once you identify what is hogging the cpu come back here and post the results and we might be able to help fix the issue.

Gary

 

i'm running it now. is there a way to copy and paste everything running and you could help weed out what's useless? for example you mentioned svchost, i see i'm running about 10 of them.

 

First things first. Let's get to the bottom of the > 50% cpu usage first.

Gary

 

i really think it's just a bunch of little things. i don't see one thing that's drastically larger than the others. i tried killing off all the svchosts but it restarted and they seem to still be running despite restarting 3 different times.

 

The info that the OP has provided isn't really sufficient for anyone here help him. We don't even know what 'tool' he has been using to determine his 50% usage. All we have is that his machine had 4gb of ram. And that he knows just enough to kill off svhost.exe without really knowing what it does.

"Don't Panic"

 

DO NOT KILL SERVICE HOST INSTANCES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Each of them houses one or more services, some of which are absolutely necessary for the proper operation. Just killing them off can wreak major havoc on your machine.

Now, I didn't necessarily expect to see one drastically larger than the others. Start up process explorer again and click at the top of the column labeled CPU. This will sort the display by the CPU usage. The topmost will most likely be "System Idle Process", is it staying below 50% all the time as you indicated in your first post? What are the next few in order? Maybe post a screen capture. (If you do though, do NOT post a full width screen capture here, it really screws up the horizontal layout of the forum software. Edit the screen capture so it only shows the process and cpu columns.)

Gary