100% CPU Usage

  • Thread starter Thread starter pwhitt
  • Start date Start date
P

pwhitt

My system (P4-1.8Gig/256RAM) has suddenly become slower
than slow. My CPU seems to be at 100% all the time. Can
anyone suggest some reasons why this can occur and what I
can do about it?? Thanks so much for any info.
 
First, run a virus scan on your system and be sure your antivirus software
has the latest definitions before running the scan.

Second, do a ctrl-alt-delete, if your CPU is running at nearly 100%, look in
the task list for an application that keeps jumping in CPU usages. Anything
but System Idle Process as that is supposed to be high.
 
Thank you for the reply. I did a complete virus scan with
the latest definitions. I also checked the task manager
as you suggested and I found that the highest "user"
process was a file "TCPSVCS.exe" at 96-99%. I don't know
if this means anything but the System Idle Process was at
zero.
 
I experience the same problem. I'm running NAV as antivirus and no virusses
are found. The process that takes 100% CPU is winlogon.exe.
I have already switched from XP Home edition to Professional but that didn't
help. I have also uninstalled NAV and that didn't help either. It drives me
crazy. I run a P4 - 2.4 Ghz/512Ram. When the PC slows down it is even
impossible to launch the taskmanager so I start that up when I start my PC.
I have looked in the Microsoft technet area but I can't find anything there.
I hope someone out here can help me.

Cheers,

Victor
 
My problem is a little different. I reach 100% CPU use, but there are no
running processes using the time. In fact, System Idle shows as much as
90%, but the system will stop for 8 seconds, then respond normally for two,
then stop for 8, etc. This doesn't happen all the time and never at
startup. It usually occurs after the system has been running for several
hours or days. I have Norton AV up to date, Zone Alarm up to date, and two
different hardware firewalls. During the 8 second stop, nothing is
happening, no keyboard response, no mouse response, no Internet activity (as
measured with DU Meter), and during the two seconds of activity, any keys
pressed during the stop will take effect. The only solution I've found is
to reboot. I assume some task is running that is hidden from the Task
Manager, but I don't know how to find out what it is. Any suggestions?
 
I seem to have cleared my problem up (knock on wood), by running msconfig,
going to startup, and clicking on disable all. Then when you reboot,
msconfig will automatically open, and I had to check some box and tell it to
not open each time that I would reboot. I actually had to play with msconfig
several times doing this, because things would get added back to the startup
section. In the end, my cpu usage stopped being 100%, but I do not know
exactly what was hogging the cpu up. I also just looked, and everything
seems to be checked in the startup section of msconfig, so go figure.
 
Here is another tip that dennis (someone in this newsgroup) passed on to me.
I did not try this, but only because my cpu usage suddenly stopped.

Go to www.yourwaresolutions.com and download the free
program FreeRam XP Lite. Install and run to determine
memory, CPU usage and virtual me issues. This program will
also release hogged up ram better than any I've ever tried.
 
Open Control Panel, open Administrative Tools, open Event Viewer and look
for errors that correspond to when this issue appears. If you find any,
double click, the information contained within may give a clue as to the
source of the problem.

Place the XP CD in the drive, when the setup screen appears, select "Check
System Compatibility." If you have any hardware or software compatibility
issues on your setup, this may find them and may lead to the source of the
problem.
 
Back
Top