100% CPU Usage

[PerryJ]

**The System:

Dell Dimension 8200

1.78 Gig

512 Mb RAM

XP Pro.

One 80 Gig and two 60 Gig hard drives



**The Problem:

When the system boots up it is painfully slow with CPU usage at 100% most of
the time. If I change either the resolution or the color settings in the
Desktop Properties, the system will run normal with CPU usage almost always
below 20%. It does not matter which resolution/color combination I select.
The PC runs normal until I reboot.



**Benchmark testing:

The Diamond Mine game which is a Java applet found on Yahoo.com and
MyWay.com.

I monitor CPU usage while playing the game (FreeMeter has a nice ticker-tape
type graph).

After bootup, CPU usage is 100% about 90% of the time.

After changing the resolution/color settings, the CPU usage rarely exceeds
15%.



**Troubleshooting Performed:

Changed Video card twice

Changed daughter cards for PCI and Memory (a Motherboard was requested)

Reformatted C: and reinstalled XP Pro.

Tested system BEFORE applications were installed - Problem still exists.

Installed new C: drive and problem still exists (Dell insisted)

Searched KnowlegeBase, several Newsgroups, and performed a Google search.



Does anybody have any suggestions ? ? ?



Thanks,

Perry

 

[Jun Hogyu]

Very weird. No real ideas, but 2 suggestions:

when you swapped out video cards, did you change video drivers? Is your
video driver up to date?

If you look in processes in Task Manager, can you tell which process is
accounting for the bulk of the CPU usage?

 

[Rich]

Dunno why your CPU is so high right off BUT -

1. Is this a built-in video card or a seperate card on
your system? Is it AGP or PCI?
2. Does your CPU useage coincide with any events logged
when you restart your system?
3. Try www.sysinternals.com process explorer (better than
task mangler) it'll show tasks along with open
files/registry entries associated with the task and will
show things often not shown with Task Manager - like maybe
a virus running as Explore.exe instead of explorer.exe or
something similar.

4. Defrag your drive/do an error check, and set your swap
file appropriately. I like 1 to 1½ times my memory size
as my swap file size, but that's me.

Hope this helps!
Rich

 

[PerryJ]

I'm sorry; I forgot to mention that I updated the BIOS, ensured that all
software applications were updated , and updated the device drivers.

Task Manager indicates that the current active application eats up the CPU
resources. The Diamond Mine Game = Explorer, Check Mail = Outlook, Query a
medium size database = Access, etc, etc.

Thanks,
Perry

 

[PerryJ]

Rich:

1. It has an AGP video card.

2. No, the usage spikes any time anything is loaded or run.

3. I'll give it a try.

4. I reformated the first drive and then installed a brand new drive so I
figured that drive maintenance would not be needed.

Update:
I reinstalled my old drive and nothing changed.

Thanks,
Perry


Dunno why your CPU is so high right off BUT -

1. Is this a built-in video card or a seperate card on
your system? Is it AGP or PCI?
2. Does your CPU useage coincide with any events logged
when you restart your system?
3. Try www.sysinternals.com process explorer (better than
task mangler) it'll show tasks along with open
files/registry entries associated with the task and will
show things often not shown with Task Manager - like maybe
a virus running as Explore.exe instead of explorer.exe or
something similar.

4. Defrag your drive/do an error check, and set your swap
file appropriately. I like 1 to 1½ times my memory size
as my swap file size, but that's me.

Hope this helps!
Rich