system process bogging down system....

For some reason, some unspecified system process starts up without warning, doesn't seem to be doing anything, and seriously bogs down my system performance. It says it takes up 50% of my cpu, but even at that, i should still be able to multi-task, but it seems like my system is pretty damn slow, to the point of freezing. I couldn't even take a screenshot, so i grabbed my camera and took a picture.

This is seriously annoying. Anybody else experience this? What is this? How do I prevent it? This has made my computer slow to a crawl, to the point where i had to manually shut off (holding down the power button). This has happened twice since i got my PC in February. So even though my computer has crashed twice in the past three months, that's still twice too many.

EDIT: Also, i right-clicked on it, and clicked 'open containing folder' or whatever it says. it didnt open any folders. I then clicked end task. it said the system could lock up, so i clicked cancel. then my task manager stopped responding! I didn't even know the task manager can freeze! So i click the X in the corner and it asks me if i want to end task on the task manager. I didn't even know that was possible! ugh...........

 

Are you on Vista? Hmm not sure what to suggest Try running in safe-mode to see if it helps without all the rest of resources running at the same time?

What were you doing while this process takes up all your processing power?

 

The only thing that stood out on your screenshot was Firefox. That memory amount looks awful high, unless you have a lot of tabs open or are running a lot of animation. Older versions of FF (pre 2.0, I think) reportedly had problems with memory leaks. You might want to update to the most recent version.

The others (System, System Idle, and taskmgr.exe) are normal. Task Manager goes away when you close Task Manager.

What's in your start up? Check your startup folder on the Start menu. If thinks look OK there, go to Start | Run | type msconfig and hit enter. Look at the processes that start up on the Startup tab. Does anything look suspicious there?

 

My startup looks perfectly fine. Just all the crap that i want to start at startup (messenger, sidebar, etc). the only thing in there i dont recognize is (C:\Windows\ehome\ehTray.exe)... i dont know what that is, but it appears to be legit.

I do have the latest version of Firefox, and it could have been using alot of memory because i had several tabs open, reading messages, watching embedded flash videos, reading news. I don't think this is the source of the problem, because this is something i do every day, often at the same time, and my performance is never affected by it. if it was, it would certainly not slow my system to a crawl like this.

I guess i'll do a virus scan later on. I can't think of what could have caused this...

 

ehTray is something to do with Windows MCE. It's legit, but not needed, unless you use media center.

A virus scan and scans with Spybot and Adaware might identify a problem.

 

Yes, i do use Media Center, so i guess i'll keep ehtray enabled.

I guess i'll do a scan and post an update here....

 

I just looked at my Task Manager and don't see the "system idle" line which takes 40% and "firefox" takes 50%! No wonder your system is so slow.

 

Firefox was taking up 2% of my cpu. two percent. and about 130mb, which, out of 2048mb, isn't really that much. i still had about a gig of free ram.

after i closed firefox, the 'system' process was still going. i am certain that it was not firefox.

 

Make sure you update your graphics drivers. Does it happen when you run without Aero enabled?