100% CPU Utilization on New XP Install

[Guest]

Hi there,
I had a copy of XP Pro installed on my system, but my CPU utilization stayed at 100% under "System" (not System Idle Process). When the Kernel % is shown in Task Manager, nearly all of the CPU activity was for the kernel (approx 98% give or take a few %

To diagnose, I re-partitioned and formatted the hard drive and re-installed XP Pro, but the same issue occurred.

Out of desperation, I re-formatted and partitioned the drive again and installed Windows 98. Amazingly, the CPU cycles dropped to ~ 25%.

I then did an upgrade from 98 to XP Home. Immediately upon install, with no additional applications, I had 100% utilization again. I have updated all critical SPs and hotfixes.

What is going on?!
Thanks very much,
Sue

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Sue

Look at processes in Task Manager. It is normal to have a number of Svchost.exe process entries appearing in Task Manager. For the process generating the high usage how is the User described? Next whilst Task Manager is showing high usage change from the Process Tab to the Application Tab. Then select each running Application in turn, right click and select "Go to Process" and see if you can identify the application causing the high usage.

Next select Start, Administrative Tools, Services. Compare the list of services with those shown as Started and for each in turn stop the service and observe the effect. If the CPU usage in Task Manager continues or something stops working restart the service. When you have found the likely cause i.e. the CPU usage stops then post details of what you have found.


~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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FCA
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Stourport, Worcs, England
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[bluetack]

I have a similar problem for a year on my laptop that
I upgraded from Win XP Home to Pro. I have not yet been
able to fix the problem despite several
reinstalls/repairs of XP Pro. However, the issue seems
to be with the battery status and I can avoid the problem
by powering on the pc without external power supply and
then before/while XP boots to attach the external power,
obviously this only works with a laptop. If you have a
desktop then the reference to Svchost may be relevant,
there are ususally 4 of them I think not using much CPU
if there are more it could be a virus as I read about
such a virus some time ago, check with a virus utility.
Graham

-----Original Message-----
Sue

Look at processes in Task Manager. It is normal to have

a number of Svchost.exe process entries appearing in Task
Manager. For the process generating the high usage how is
the User described? Next whilst Task Manager is showing
high usage change from the Process Tab to the Application
Tab. Then select each running Application in turn, right
click and select "Go to Process" and see if you can
identify the application causing the high usage.

Next select Start, Administrative Tools, Services.

Compare the list of services with those shown as Started
and for each in turn stop the service and observe the
effect. If the CPU usage in Task Manager continues or
something stops working restart the service. When you
have found the likely cause i.e. the CPU usage stops then
post details of what you have found.

~~~~~~


Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
FCA
(e-mail address removed)
Stourport, Worcs, England
Enquire, plan and execute.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please tell the newsgroup how any
suggested solution worked for you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Sue" <[email protected]> wrote in

message (e-mail address removed)...CPU utilization stayed at 100% under "System" (not System
Idle Process). When the Kernel % is shown in Task
Manager, nearly all of the CPU activity was for the
kernel (approx 98% give or take a few %)drive and re-installed XP Pro, but the same issue
occurred.drive again and installed Windows 98. Amazingly, the CPU
cycles dropped to ~ 25%.upon install, with no additional applications, I had 100%
utilization again. I have updated all critical SPs and
hotfixes.

 

[Thomas Kratz]

Hi there,
I had a copy of XP Pro installed on my system, but my CPU utilization stayed at 100% under "System" (not System Idle Process). When the Kernel % is shown in Task Manager, nearly all of the CPU activity was for the kernel (approx 98% give or take a few %)

To diagnose, I re-partitioned and formatted the hard drive and re-installed XP Pro, but the same issue occurred.

Out of desperation, I re-formatted and partitioned the drive again and installed Windows 98. Amazingly, the CPU cycles dropped to ~ 25%.

I then did an upgrade from 98 to XP Home. Immediately upon install, with no additional applications, I had 100% utilization again. I have updated all critical SPs and hotfixes.

What is going on?!
Thanks very much,
Sue

I had a similar problem yesterday. My XP Pro SP1 had a CPU utilization
between 20 and 40% right after startup. All shown as Kernel time and no
Process in Taskmanager that uses any CPU time (IDLE Process has 98-99%).

- Reinstalled fresh XP (incl SP1) --> same effect

- activated onboard Promise Fastrack RAID controller (no drives
connected) and installed the drivers --> CPU utilization dropped to 0%

Heh?

There seems to be something fishy with the hardware detection. The RAID
controller chip was deactivated in BIOS and didn't show up in the device
manager.

(This was an ECS Elitegroup L7VTA (VIA KT 400) with Athlon 1700+)

Thomas