programs running idle...

[Guest]

I have a WinXP Home machine that is having issues. Lately, whenever I run an
application (it doesn't seem to matter which one) the program will simply
stop running...almost as if it were getting no CPU cycles....then after
awhile it resumes running fine. Looking at the Task Manager proves this.
Almost all of the CPU cycles go to System Idle Process, and then after some
time, the program gains more cycles and keeps on running. This goes on and
on and on and I cannot seem to find the cause. I tried setting the CPU
priority on some apps to the highest level within task manager, but that has
not helped. I ran updated spyware and AV programs, which are updated....and
took nearly a day to run. But everything came up clean. This machine is
very rarely connected to the Internet. What could be the cause of my
problem??

Jeff

 

[Malke]

I have a WinXP Home machine that is having issues. Lately, whenever I
run an application (it doesn't seem to matter which one) the program
will simply stop running...almost as if it were getting no CPU
cycles....then after
awhile it resumes running fine. Looking at the Task Manager proves
this. Almost all of the CPU cycles go to System Idle Process, and then
after some
time, the program gains more cycles and keeps on running. This goes
on and
on and on and I cannot seem to find the cause. I tried setting the
CPU priority on some apps to the highest level within task manager,
but that has
not helped. I ran updated spyware and AV programs, which are
updated....and
took nearly a day to run. But everything came up clean. This machine
is
very rarely connected to the Internet. What could be the cause of my
problem??

Jeff

Since you are sure the computer is 100% malware-free, I'd do two things:

1. Look in Event Viewer to see if there are any clues. Start>Run
eventvwr.msc [enter]

2. Swap out your power supply for a known-working one. This may be a
hardware problem.

Malke

 

[Steve Shattuck]

Almost all of the CPU cycles go to System Idle Process

System = CPU
IDLE = not being used
Process = task to measure idle CPU