100% CPU on HP Pavilion Laptop

[rnmalhotra]

XP Xperts,

I have an HP Pavilion ze4100 laptop running Windows XP with 640 MB
memory, and plenty of disk space. When the machine comes up, the CPU
arbitrarily jumps up to 100% usage, and the mouse pointer disappears.
After some time, the CPU usage comes down, and back again to 100%. This
continues, making the machine un-usable.

I have checked the machine thoroughly for viruses, found none. It
had thoroughly been cleaned for Adware or Spyware, with several
different programs, and is clean. I re-installed Windows XP SP2 without
any problems - after re-formatting the hard drive. The problem still
persists.

The crazy thing is, task manager reports the top most window's
process to be consuming 100% of the CPU. That is, if I have windows
explorer as the window with focus, task manager will report it having
100% of the CPU, if IE is the top most window, it will have 100% of the
CPU. If no windows are open, just the task manager, the task manager
process has 100% of the CPU.

I have looked all over, but have no clues. Any and all help
appreciated at this time.

Best,

Raj.

 

[Guest]

This can be a real painstaking process but do a step by step start up. That
is go to msconfig and stop all services and restart machine. Does the problem
reoccur? If it stops then re-enable services in blocks of ten and restart. If
the problem comes back at some point in this loop then the culprit is a
service.

You can do the same thing for drivers too- but it sounds like a service or
application. Try also disabling all startup programs and rebooting.

 

[cluberti]

I would also suggest using Process Explorer from sysinternals, as you can go
into the properties of the process utilizing the CPU and see which thread
inside of the process is causing the issue, and that is likely to give you a
hint in troubleshooting as well.

 

[rnmalhotra]

Just wanted to thank everyone that responded. I finally solved the
problem. It turns out that the video driver was not installed properly.

Re-installing the video driver seems to have solved the 100% cpu
problem.

Sort of an anti-climax, but am happy for it nevertheless.


Thx again,


Rgds,


Raj.