CPU usage

[John Rampling]

Something is hogging my CPU (running at 80 - 99% usage) but it does not show
up in Task Manager. Any freeware to find out what's really happening so I
can get back control of my 'puter?

John

 

[Bob Vickers]

John I guess the first Question would be what O.S. are you using, You may
already have the tools you need.

 

[Mel]

Something is hogging my CPU (running at 80 - 99% usage) but it does not show
up in Task Manager. Any freeware to find out what's really happening so I
can get back control of my 'puter?

John

Process Patrol is software that allows you to monitor all processes that
are running on your computer. You can look at which processes are
currently running on your PC, and stop the ones that you do not want to
run. You can even set a search schedule for Process Patrol to
periodically monitor the running processes and automatically stop the
ones you specify.

Process Patrol shows you the list of processes that are currently
running on your machine, much like the Windows XP Task Manager. Process
Patrol also lets you select processes that you want to manually stop,
just like the Task Manager. However, that's where the similarities end.
Process Patrol lets you manage the processes on your machine. You can
flag a set of processes that you know you don't want to run, and the
software will remember this list. Furthermore, you can have the software
automatically scan for these processes and stop them if they have been
restarted. By maintaining stop and safe lists of processes, you can gain
complete control over what runs on your computer. At any time you can
view what is currently running in a color-coded list, which shows you if
there are any new processes running that you haven't examined yet.

http://www.processpatrol.com/

 

[John Rampling]

John I guess the first Question would be what O.S. are you using, You may
already have the tools you need.

Windows XP Pro with SP2

 

[John Rampling]

Thanks for the advice but ProcessPatrol only lists the same processes that I
can already see in Task Manager. Like I said before, none of the listed
processes are responsible for the intense CPU usage that I'm getting.

John

 

[Mel]

When I start up my computer [Win XP], my "PF" usage is around 160-180 mb
with no apps running. However, sometimes after maybe a day's use, the PF
would be at 250-ish mb, still with no apps running.
I can reconize anything foreign or uncommon in the processes list [task
manager...], and when the PF is stuck up in the 250's, there's nothing--
that I can see-- new in the list.
Occasionally, when I shut down, the "Ending program" window would come
up. Is there any way of my ending a 'task'/process that isn't on the
list? or finding it?

 

[Mel]

Suspicious processes

How can I list running processes in Windows?
Running processes can be listed in Windows using a utility pslist. This
is available for download at:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pslist.shtml

How do we map ports to running processes?

In Windows the information can be found by using the fport utility from
Foundstone:

http://www.foundstone.com/knowledge/proddesc/fport.html

Where can I get an updated list of suspicious ports?
A good reference site is:

http://www.doshelp.com/trojanports.htm

Robert Graham's firewall-seen FAQs explain the
meaning of the log entries in firewall logs:

http://www.robertgraham.com/pubs/firewall-seen.html

How can we view process statistics?

To view process statistics in Windows we can use the Windows task
manager, or PsList from Sysinternals.com:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pslist.shtml

 

[Mel]

What is Advanced Process Termination (APT)?
===========================================
Advanced Process Termination is a simple but powerful utility that
provides nine (9) different process termination techniques - all at the
click of a button. Process Guard also has powerful anti-hook
capabilities to prevent other programs from hooking critical functions
(something often done by trojans to prevent their processes from being
seen or terminated). In addition to process termination, APT also allows
you to Suspend and Resume processes, and also serves as a useful process
list utility.

Which operating systems are supported?
======================================
Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 are supported. Unfortunately,
the advanced techniques used by APT can not be used under earlier
operating systems such as Windows 95/98/NT.

Who is this program for?
========================
Generally speaking, all experienced computer users will find APT a
useful addition to their toolkit. Although security specialists,
researchers, analysts and programmers may get the most use out of APT,
general home users may also find it handy, although we don't recommend
APT for novice users. In any case, it's a small and 100% FREE utility so
we encourage you to simply try it for yourself!

http://www.diamondcs.com.au/index.php?page=apt

 

[Mel]

Process Tamer is a tiny (140k) super efficient utility for Microsoft
Windows NT/2K/XP that runs in your system tray and constantly monitors
the cpu usage of other processes. When it sees a process that is
overloading your cpu, it reduces the priority of that process
temporarily, until its cpu usage returns to a reasonable level.

There are many times when a process will hog your cpu, such as when
converting audio/video files, or working with compressed archives.
Because these processes completely consume the cpu, your system becomes
sluggish to respond and using the computer for other tasks becomes
impossible while these processes are running.

Process Tamer solves this problem by identifying such these degenerate
conditions and temporarily reducing the priority of the offending
processes in order to allow your system to respond to other requests.
Stop being a victim to an overloaded cpu - let Process Tamer keep your
system responsive no matter what you're doing.

You'll see a baloon tooltip in your system tray whenever Process Tamer
adjusts or restores the priority of an application, so you'll always
know what it's doing and why.

Of course there are times when you probably won't want Process Tamer to
change process priorities, such as when playing games or if you are
burning a cd/dvd on a slow computer; just double click its icon to
toggle it on and off. Or you can also specify override rules for
specific applications in order to tell the program to ignore them, force
them to high or low priorities, or even to kill them as soon as they are
found running.

The new version 2 release includes a separate standalone configuration
tool which lets you easily setup exclusion rules, manually adjust
process priorites, and more, without affecting the efficiency and
resource use of the resident system tray tool.

http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Mouser/proctamer/index.html

 

[derek / nul]

Thanks for the advice but ProcessPatrol only lists the same processes that I
can already see in Task Manager. Like I said before, none of the listed
processes are responsible for the intense CPU usage that I'm getting.

John, that's not true, its all there

Can you post a picture somewhere?

 

[PL]

Something is hogging my CPU (running at 80 - 99% usage) but it does not show
up in Task Manager. Any freeware to find out what's really happening so I
can get back control of my 'puter?

John

Take a look in the Prefetch folder in your Windows directory. I'll show
you the name, date and time of all the applications running on your PC

 

[Krull]

There are many times when a process will hog your cpu, such as when
converting audio/video files, or working with compressed archives.
Because these processes completely consume the cpu, your system
becomes sluggish to respond and using the computer for other tasks
becomes impossible while these processes are running.

Which is perfectly normal and expected for such math-intensive apps.

Process Tamer solves this problem by identifying such these degenerate
conditions and temporarily reducing the priority of the offending
processes in order to allow your system to respond to other requests.

Bloody hell, do you want the app to do the task or not? If you're
doing something intensive like a video conversion, then it's detrimental
to the task to try to slow it down just so you can do other things.

Either let the task do its work with 100% CPU, or if you need to use
your computer then don't perform that task until the PC can be left
alone to get on with it.