High CPU Usage

[Martin]

A friend has problems with the processor being permanently overworked, eg.
playing MP3 or a normal CD the processor is working at 70%. Any on screen
movement and it bottoms out at 100% immediately and the music quality is
comprimised. Simple tasks like opening a 60k PDF file takes about 10
seconds. The problem was not as bad in ME and the machine was generally
faster. He updated the Award BIOS last year and installed all the latest
drivers this week. DMA is set for the hard disk. He has run HD and RAM
utilities and the performance is medium to good with no errors. The virtual
memory is set to a drive with about 3G of space.

Setup:
AMD-K6 3D @ 500MHz
256MB RAM
NVIDIA RIVA TNT2-64
Creative Labs PC128 (CT4810)

Any thoughts?

Martin

 

[Kelly]

Hi Martin,

Have him try running the same in a new profile. At times this can happen
when the profile becomes corrupt.

 

[Alex Nichol]

A friend has problems with the processor being permanently overworked, eg.
playing MP3 or a normal CD the processor is working at 70%. Any on screen
movement and it bottoms out at 100% immediately and the music quality is
comprimised.

If you are using Windows Media Player, turn off Visualisations, which
take an entirely excessive amount of CPU. Or better, use a third party
program like the free WinAmp for audio purposes

 

[Martin]

Have him try running the same in a new profile. At times this can happen
when the profile becomes corrupt.

Thanks for that Kelly. He tried a new User profile but it didn't work. Did
you mean a hardware profile though?

Martin

 

[Martin]

If you are using Windows Media Player, turn off Visualisations, which
take an entirely excessive amount of CPU. Or better, use a third party
program like the free WinAmp for audio purposes

He has been using WinAmp and the symptoms do appear with that too. Thanks
for the response.

Martin