Where do all the cycles go ?

[Joe Auerbach]

I have XP Home, all the current patches. After the system has been up for abt
20 minutes, something kicks off that sucks up all the cycles for about 3
minutes, bringing the machine to a crawl. Task Manager shows Idle at abt 90%,
with a couple of other tasks flashing in & out. After about 3 minutes, the
machine returns to normal. How do I nail which task or process is chewing up
all the cycles ?
Thanx, Joe Auerbach

 

[Jerry]

A program is probably calling home for updates; check any virus scan
programs, spy sweeper types, etc and see if you have opted for automatic
updates; which includes Windows itself.

 

[Joe Auerbach]

Thanx, Jerry, I thought that it might be ssomething like an update, what I
was looking for is a way to identify which app it might be

 

[Leonard Grey]

Your processor is idle (System Idle Process) 90% and that's a problem?

It's completely normal for software to do housekeeping in the
background. Not to worry.

 

[Joe Auerbach]

Sorry, Leonard, but the machine being unusable and unresponsive for that time
isn't "Don't worry, be happy" mode. It's not as if I'm using a 286 or some
such, it's a current Dell with a good processor & 1GB of memory. I'm also not
that loaded up with apps, maybe 2 instances of IE and that's about it.
I agree with Jerry that it's probably one of the background tasks doing
updates, what I'm trying to do is identify which one & see what the story is.

 

[Leonard Grey]

In that case, System Idle Process is not at 90%. Please get your story
straight

 

[Jim]

Sorry, Leonard, but the machine being unusable and unresponsive for that
time
isn't "Don't worry, be happy" mode. It's not as if I'm using a 286 or some
such, it's a current Dell with a good processor & 1GB of memory. I'm also
not
that loaded up with apps, maybe 2 instances of IE and that's about it.
I agree with Jerry that it's probably one of the background tasks doing
updates, what I'm trying to do is identify which one & see what the story
is.

Process Explorer might be a better choice than Task Manager.

In addition, your problem may be excessive interrupt service time. Process
Explorer shows this time.
Jim

 

[Joe Auerbach]

Thanx, Jim, I'll try that. I had only tried TM because it was easiest to
invoke, especially with the machine running in slow motion. I've set up
perfmon to run the next times that I start the machine, if that doesn't show
the culprit I'll try process explorer.