CPU usage jumps to 50% for no reason

[Guest]

Once or twice a week my CPU will start to overwork itself. The only thing I
can do is restart the computer to fix the problem. Task manager graph shows
both of my 550 MHz cpus at 50% but then I go into processes and nothing is
excessive - system idle process is around 96%. Kernel usage matches CPU
usage. I downloaded the shareware "Process Explorer" from sysinternals.com
and it did find that most of the usage was going into hardware interrupts,
and some to Deferred Procedure Calls. So I think I might be on the right
track, but I don't know how to single out and study a specific piece of
hardware, and I don't know how to kill/reset the hardware interrupts. Device
Manager shows that all my devices are working properly. It's an old HP
Visualize workstation with a gig of RAM and 2 small SCSI hard drives. Any
ideas would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Check Event Viewer for errors.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Once or twice a week my CPU will start to overwork itself. The only thing
I
| can do is restart the computer to fix the problem. Task manager graph
shows
| both of my 550 MHz cpus at 50% but then I go into processes and nothing is
| excessive - system idle process is around 96%. Kernel usage matches CPU
| usage. I downloaded the shareware "Process Explorer" from
sysinternals.com
| and it did find that most of the usage was going into hardware interrupts,
| and some to Deferred Procedure Calls. So I think I might be on the right
| track, but I don't know how to single out and study a specific piece of
| hardware, and I don't know how to kill/reset the hardware interrupts.
Device
| Manager shows that all my devices are working properly. It's an old HP
| Visualize workstation with a gig of RAM and 2 small SCSI hard drives. Any
| ideas would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks.

 

[Guest]

Thanks, I never knew about Event Viewer. I checked through the errors and
warnings and there were a bunch, some related to Symantec antivirus, some
related to microsoft.com's automatic updates. I thought that the automatic
updates might be the problem so i turned them off, but just recently my CPU
jumped up again. I kept track of when the "crash" took place and there were
no Event Viewer errors near that time.

So, I'm still at a loss... Any more ideas would be appreciated.

thanks,
Dylan

 

[Dave Patrick]

Task Manager|Processes and see what process is consuming the mem/cpu

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Thanks, I never knew about Event Viewer. I checked through the errors and
| warnings and there were a bunch, some related to Symantec antivirus, some
| related to microsoft.com's automatic updates. I thought that the
automatic
| updates might be the problem so i turned them off, but just recently my
CPU
| jumped up again. I kept track of when the "crash" took place and there
were
| no Event Viewer errors near that time.
|
| So, I'm still at a loss... Any more ideas would be appreciated.
|
| thanks,
| Dylan

 

[Guest]

That's what I looked at initially. No process is using up CPU time. System
Idle process is ~96% but the CPU usage history graph constantly runs at
50-60%. . That's why I downloaded that other software which showed me that
hardware interrupts are the source of the constant usage. Please see my
first message. thanks.

 

[Dave Patrick]

The CPU column on the processes tab should indicate this. You might ask
specific questions here about tool use.

http://www.sysinternals.com/Forum/forum_topics.asp?FID=2

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| That's what I looked at initially. No process is using up CPU time.
System
| Idle process is ~96% but the CPU usage history graph constantly runs at
| 50-60%. . That's why I downloaded that other software which showed me
that
| hardware interrupts are the source of the constant usage. Please see my
| first message. thanks.