CPU usage

[Steffo]

I'm wondering if there is a setting I can change in order to avoid freezing
when CPU usage is 100%.
I thought that the XP system was supposed to use some hard disc space when
RAM's full: how can I improve this feature?
Just to give you an example: my OE6 is open, an XP browser page's open, the
messenger's open, my FX trading site is open.
With all that, I'm using 95% CPU and my PC freezes if I want to open a
graphic page (like a diagram chart) within the trading site.
It's exactly the same of when I was using WinME, 1G processor, 256M RAM and
I wanted to improve buying WinXP, 2G processor, 1G RAM.
But nothing's changed: is there anything I can do to enhance the memory
space?
Thanks for your help.
Steffo

 

[Guest]

I'm wondering if there is a setting I can change in order to avoid freezing
when CPU usage is 100%.
I thought that the XP system was supposed to use some hard disc space when
RAM's full: how can I improve this feature?

What you are referring to is the use of a paging file thereby creating
virtual memory. If you are interested in modifying the options for this
feature on your own, you can do so by opening up "System Properties" and
clicking on the "Advanced" tab and selecting the "Performance Options"
button. You would then be able to change the location of the paging file,
create multiple paging files on different drives or modify the size.

Just to give you an example: my OE6 is open, an XP browser page's open, the
messenger's open, my FX trading site is open.
With all that, I'm using 95% CPU and my PC freezes if I want to open a
graphic page (like a diagram chart) within the trading site.
It's exactly the same of when I was using WinME, 1G processor, 256M RAM and
I wanted to improve buying WinXP, 2G processor, 1G RAM.

Your computer may be freezing because the processor is overheating. You
might want to check and make sure that there is adequate airflow inside the
case and that the processor is not exceeding its rated temperature threshold.

 

[Steffo]

Thanks Napo.
What's the value (min-max) I should write as paging file size for drivers?
Or should I tick the system managed size box?
Thanks again.
Steffo

 

[Guest]

The "System Managed" checkbox should be sufficient. To improve performance
however you may want to set the minimum paging file to be about 2 or 3 times
the amount of physical memory you have in your system and extend the maximum
accordingly. Placing the paging file on a drive other than the one hosting
the system partition is also recommended.

 

[Vagabond Software]

The "System Managed" checkbox should be sufficient. To improve performance
however you may want to set the minimum paging file to be about 2 or 3 times
the amount of physical memory you have in your system and extend the maximum
accordingly. Placing the paging file on a drive other than the one hosting
the system partition is also recommended.

In addition to Napolean's recommendation, you may want to simply set the Minimum and Maximum values to the same size. This prevents the paging file from resizing.

carl

 

[Ken Blake]

In

The "System Managed" checkbox should be sufficient. To improve
performance however you may want to set the minimum paging file
to be
about 2 or 3 times the amount of physical memory you have in
your
system and extend the maximum accordingly.

This an often-repeated, but wrong recommendation. The more RAM
you have, the *less* page file you need.

Placing the paging file on
a drive other than the one hosting the system partition is also
recommended.

That's true only if that other drive is another *physical* drive.
If it's another partition on the same physical drive, it puts the
page file farther from the other frequently-used data on the
drive, increases head movement to and from it, and *hurts*
performance.

 

[Steffo]

Hi Ken.
What are the min and max values I should write in the paging file size?
Right now I have 150 and 3300MB: is that OK or should I be better off with
the option "system managed size"?
Thanks.
Steffo

 

[DanS]

I'm wondering if there is a setting I can change in order to avoid
freezing when CPU usage is 100%.
I thought that the XP system was supposed to use some hard disc space
when RAM's full: how can I improve this feature?
Just to give you an example: my OE6 is open, an XP browser page's
open, the messenger's open, my FX trading site is open.
With all that, I'm using 95% CPU and my PC freezes if I want to open a
graphic page (like a diagram chart) within the trading site.
It's exactly the same of when I was using WinME, 1G processor, 256M
RAM and I wanted to improve buying WinXP, 2G processor, 1G RAM.
But nothing's changed: is there anything I can do to enhance the
memory space?
Thanks for your help.
Steffo

This doesn't sound like a system issue to me. It sounds more like a
software issue. Right now I've got NewsLeecher open, 2 instances of VB6,
Explorer, XNews, Task Manager, eDonkey, ZoneAlarm, and NAV. Add all of the
system processes and such, and the CPU is jumping between 20% and 60%. Most
of that is eDonkey as I just closed it and it's now anywhere between 1% and
8%. This machine is a 1 Ghz Athlon wonly 512 Megs of RAM.

My guess is that either 1) the FX trading site is really chewing up CPU
time, or 2) you've got a bunch of spyware on your machine. I'd look at
number 1 first. Just close that and see what the CPU does. I can see it
dropping waaaayyyy down. If that's what is happening, there's not much you
can do about it short of maybe trying to lower it's thread priority.

Let us know.

Regards,

DanS

 

[Guest]

Thank you for clarifying that Ken.

In


This an often-repeated, but wrong recommendation. The more RAM
you have, the *less* page file you need.




That's true only if that other drive is another *physical* drive.
If it's another partition on the same physical drive, it puts the
page file farther from the other frequently-used data on the
drive, increases head movement to and from it, and *hurts*
performance.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Hi Ken.
What are the min and max values I should write in the paging
file
size? Right now I have 150 and 3300MB: is that OK or should I
be
better off with the option "system managed size"?
Thanks.

You have 1GB of RAM? You have a low starting size and that's
good. With as much RAM as you have, you will seldom need much
page file space at all, and there's no reason to waste any more
disk space than that.

You also have a high maximum number. That's also good, since it
permits the page file to expand to as much as necessary if it
should ever need to; even though with a 1GB of RAM, it's highly
unlikely that you will ever need anywhere near that 3300MB, it
doesn't hurt you in any way to provide for the possibility of
that occurrence.

So I would say your numbers are just fine.

 

[rck]

I'm using Outlook Express with XP and I get that 100% CPU usage and freeze
up all the time. Doesn't happen with any other program. <Ctrl> <Alt> <Del>
works for me. I have sent Microsoft a zillion of those Error Reports. I
don't know what they do with them, but so far I don't think they've found a
fix for the problem.

Bob

 

[Steffo]

In


You have 1GB of RAM? You have a low starting size and that's
good. With as much RAM as you have, you will seldom need much
page file space at all, and there's no reason to waste any more
disk space than that.

You also have a high maximum number. That's also good, since it
permits the page file to expand to as much as necessary if it
should ever need to; even though with a 1GB of RAM, it's highly
unlikely that you will ever need anywhere near that 3300MB, it
doesn't hurt you in any way to provide for the possibility of
that occurrence.

So I would say your numbers are just fine.

Thanks for that Ken.

 

[Steffo]

This doesn't sound like a system issue to me. It sounds more like a
software issue. Right now I've got NewsLeecher open, 2 instances of
VB6, Explorer, XNews, Task Manager, eDonkey, ZoneAlarm, and NAV. Add
all of the system processes and such, and the CPU is jumping between
20% and 60%. Most of that is eDonkey as I just closed it and it's now
anywhere between 1% and 8%. This machine is a 1 Ghz Athlon wonly 512
Megs of RAM.

My guess is that either 1) the FX trading site is really chewing up
CPU time, or 2) you've got a bunch of spyware on your machine. I'd
look at number 1 first. Just close that and see what the CPU does. I
can see it dropping waaaayyyy down. If that's what is happening,
there's not much you can do about it short of maybe trying to lower
it's thread priority.

Let us know.

Regards,

DanS

Yes, I know that, when I close the FX trading site with all its live graphic
windows and trading applications I'm down to 6% CPU usage.
It's pretty much the same way when I was using (up to 2 weeks ago) another
laptop with 1/4 of my actual RAM and 1/2 of my actual processor speed.
That is what I don't understand: I bought a much more powerful (and
expensive) machine but things didn't change much.
I cannot use OE, IE, Trading and Messenger at the same time or the PC
freezes, no matter what.
I must close at least one of those programs unless I find some way to push
into the HD as soon as needed.
There's plenty of space there: it's a 60G and only 1/4 of it is used.

Thanks for your support.

Steffo

(P.S. = There's no spyware chewing up around here: that's a fact)

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Thank you for clarifying that Ken.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

....


Thanks for that Ken.

You're welcome. Glad to help.

 

[DanS]

I'm using Outlook Express with XP and I get that 100% CPU usage and
freeze up all the time. Doesn't happen with any other program. <Ctrl>
<Alt> <Del> works for me. I have sent Microsoft a zillion of those
Error Reports. I don't know what they do with them, but so far I don't
think they've found a fix for the problem.

Bob

the easiest fix is NOT to use Outlook Express.

DanS

 

[DanS]

Yes, I know that, when I close the FX trading site with all its live
graphic windows and trading applications I'm down to 6% CPU usage.
It's pretty much the same way when I was using (up to 2 weeks ago)
another laptop with 1/4 of my actual RAM and 1/2 of my actual
processor speed. That is what I don't understand: I bought a much more
powerful (and expensive) machine but things didn't change much.
I cannot use OE, IE, Trading and Messenger at the same time or the PC
freezes, no matter what.
I must close at least one of those programs unless I find some way to
push into the HD as soon as needed.
There's plenty of space there: it's a 60G and only 1/4 of it is used.

Thanks for your support.

Steffo

(P.S. = There's no spyware chewing up around here: that's a fact)

your looking in the wrong place for a solution. the swap file has no
bearing on this issue. as a programmer, i have blown code that put's
program's in an endless loop (in development only, something like that
has never happened on a delivered project) that chews up 100% of the CPU
time and has nothing to do with the swap file. As one of the other
replies mentioned they've had problem like that with Outlook causing it,
and again, nothing with the swap file.

here's a quote from a forum about FX Trading....
'I never realized that every new screen I opened was being saved behind
the front screen!! Yikes!! When I discovered this, I must have deleted
40-50 charts, and all with multiple indicators, which were continuously
updating in the background......no wonder my CPU was overwhelmed.'

this is definately an issue for FX Trading to provide instructions on how
to avoid the problem you are seeing. it's something in your site
preferences. from the above quote, if 40-50 charts are updating in
realtime, over the internet, and making calculation's and prediction's in
real time and generating it's own graphics, it doesn't matter what kind
of horsepower is in your box, it will feed instruction's into the CPU as
fast as the CPU will accept it.

(e-mail address removed)

Regards,

DanS

ps- let us know how you fix it.

 

[Ron Martell]

In addition to Napolean's recommendation, you may want to simply set the Minimum and Maximum values to the same size. This prevents the paging file from resizing.

carl

And either needlessly ties up a fairly large chunk of hard drive space
or creates the risk of performance issues and possible crashes because
of limitations on the virtual memory size.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Ron Martell]

The "System Managed" checkbox should be sufficient. To improve performance
however you may want to set the minimum paging file to be about 2 or 3 times
the amount of physical memory you have in your system and extend the maximum
accordingly. Placing the paging file on a drive other than the one hosting
the system partition is also recommended.

A minimum of 2 or 3 times the amount of physical memory is totally
inappropriate for a system with 1 gb of physical RAM which is what the
o.p. said his present computer has.

Placing *a* paging file on a different physical hard drive than the
operating system is a good idea. Placing it on a different partition
on the same physical drive is not. And if the paging file is moved
then a small paging file (minimum 2 mb maximum 50 mb) should also be
left on the boot drive.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Ron Martell]

I'm wondering if there is a setting I can change in order to avoid freezing
when CPU usage is 100%.
I thought that the XP system was supposed to use some hard disc space when
RAM's full: how can I improve this feature?
Just to give you an example: my OE6 is open, an XP browser page's open, the
messenger's open, my FX trading site is open.
With all that, I'm using 95% CPU and my PC freezes if I want to open a
graphic page (like a diagram chart) within the trading site.
It's exactly the same of when I was using WinME, 1G processor, 256M RAM and
I wanted to improve buying WinXP, 2G processor, 1G RAM.
But nothing's changed: is there anything I can do to enhance the memory
space?
Thanks for your help.
Steffo

Based on what you have said in your other comments on this thread I
suspect that the main cause of your problems is the FX trading site
and whatever web pages, active X controls, and java applets are
associated with it.

Do you know anyone else who accesses the FX trading site? Do they
experience the same issues as you do? If so then my suspicions are
confirmed. If not then you need to explore in detail what differences
there are between your computer and the other persons, both in terms
of hardware specs and what other software they have installed and
running.

It may be that a background program that you are using (antivirus,
spyware prevention, popup stopper, etc etc) and which they do not use
is conflicting with the FX site stuff in some way, thereby causing
your problems.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."