What's causing high cpu usage from simple actions such as opening a menu...

[jbclem]

It seems that all I have to do is open up a menu (in any program), or start
to scroll down a page in Firefox, and my cpu% shoots up to 80-98%,
effectively paralysing my computer for a few minutes until it sorts itself
out. This is a recent problem and I'd like to try to figure out what has
changed that could be causing this. It doesn't happen everytime, just
enough to be very annoying. When I watch in Task Manager to spot the
culprit file that's hogging the cpu, sometimes it's the .exe for the program
I'm in, but just as often it'll be taskmgr.exe that's hitting the 80-98%
mark. That should be a clue, but I haven't figured it out. Any suggestions
about this?

John

ps...running Win2000 sp4, P4 computer with 2GB RAM. Usually have 800-1000mb
free RAM when the problem occurs. GDI Objects are often high (4000-7000) if
that makes a difference.

 

[Philip Herlihy]

It seems that all I have to do is open up a menu (in any program), or
start
to scroll down a page in Firefox, and my cpu% shoots up to 80-98%,
effectively paralysing my computer for a few minutes until it sorts itself
out. This is a recent problem and I'd like to try to figure out what has
changed that could be causing this. It doesn't happen everytime, just
enough to be very annoying. When I watch in Task Manager to spot the
culprit file that's hogging the cpu, sometimes it's the .exe for the
program
I'm in, but just as often it'll be taskmgr.exe that's hitting the 80-98%
mark. That should be a clue, but I haven't figured it out. Any
suggestions
about this?

John

ps...running Win2000 sp4, P4 computer with 2GB RAM. Usually have
800-1000mb
free RAM when the problem occurs. GDI Objects are often high (4000-7000)
if
that makes a difference.

Hard to tell without seeing the machine. You might like to try Process
Explorer instead of Task Manager, as it makes much more detail available,
although it takes a while to figure out how to use it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

This video should get you started:
http://www.msteched.com/2010/NorthAmerica/WCL314

Phil, London

 

[MN]

It seems that all I have to do is open up a menu (in any program), or
start to scroll down a page in Firefox, and my cpu% shoots up to
80-98%, effectively paralysing my computer for a few minutes until it
sorts itself out. This is a recent problem and I'd like to try to
figure out what has changed that could be causing this. It doesn't
happen everytime, just enough to be very annoying. When I watch in
Task Manager to spot the culprit file that's hogging the cpu,
sometimes it's the .exe for the program I'm in, but just as often
it'll be taskmgr.exe that's hitting the 80-98% mark. That should be
a clue, but I haven't figured it out. Any suggestions about this?

John

ps...running Win2000 sp4, P4 computer with 2GB RAM. Usually have
800-1000mb free RAM when the problem occurs. GDI Objects are often
high (4000-7000) if that makes a difference.

Looks like you have company here, though pertinent just to FireFox:
Firefox 2.0 - High Memory Usage - High CPU Usage - What's Up With This
Now?
<http://www.lockergnome.com/blade/2007/01/26/firefox-20-high-memory-usag
e-high-cpu-usage-whats-up-with-this-now/>

You can try the other programs with FireFox closed to see any
improvement.