Windows Task Manager; high CPU use

[Richard Fangnail]

At my work computer, when I go to Yahoo Mail, the CPU Usage goes
extremely high (over 50%), and causes me to be unable to load any web
pages at all. I have to wait 3-5 minutes for the CPU usage to go down
again, and then I can load pages again. It doesn't always happen in
Yahoo Mail, but it often does, and it happens with either Firefox or
IE.

On the Performance display, there are two history graphs. When I have
this problem, the first graph goes up to 100% but the second one
appears normal. What does that mean?

I've only had this problem a few weeks yet I've been at this computer
almost a year.

Sometimes I try closing all other programs but it often doesn't help.

Thanks.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

At my work computer, when I go to Yahoo Mail, the CPU Usage goes
extremely high (over 50%), and causes me to be unable to load any
web pages at all. I have to wait 3-5 minutes for the CPU usage to
go down again, and then I can load pages again. It doesn't always
happen in Yahoo Mail, but it often does, and it happens with either
Firefox or IE.

On the Performance display, there are two history graphs. When I
have this problem, the first graph goes up to 100% but the second
one appears normal. What does that mean?

I've only had this problem a few weeks yet I've been at this
computer almost a year.

Sometimes I try closing all other programs but it often doesn't
help.

You likely have multiple (dual) cores.
My suggestion:

Uninstall *all* internet plugins (in particular):
- Quicktime (or alternatives)
- Real Player (or alternatives)
- Java Runtime Environment (all versions)
- Shockwave
- Flash

Also remove any toolbars you have installed above defaults. Particularly
any Yahoo ones, Google ones, etc.

Reboot.

Download and install the latest version for each plugin in both of your
browsers. Leave out the toolbars for now.

Reboot.

Try going to your Yahoo Mail page.

Come back - let everyone here know how that went...

 

[Randem]

Open up task manager, go to the Processes tab then sort on the CPU cycles by
clicking on the CPU header twice. You will see the processes that are taking
up your cpu cycles in the decending order from most to least. Report on
that. If you have Windows Search 4.0 installed it can hog your cpu. It is
really bad with taking cpu cycles and I would uninstall it.

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
http://www.rndem.com/installerproblems.html
http://www.randem.com/vistainstalls.html
http://www.financialtrainingservices.org

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Richard Fangnail:

At my work computer, when I go to Yahoo Mail, the CPU Usage goes
extremely high (over 50%), and causes me to be unable to load any web
pages at all. I have to wait 3-5 minutes for the CPU usage to go down
again, and then I can load pages again. It doesn't always happen in
Yahoo Mail, but it often does, and it happens with either Firefox or
IE.

Having also had problems - some of which were very high CPU usage
for no apparent reason, where TaskMan didn't shed any light; I
elected to re-image the PC.

Not real elegant, but it does do the job.

At home, I've got an adolescent pounding on my box couple hours a
day - so restoring from a known good image is common enough that
I feel comfortable adopting the strategy for my machine at work.
One key is learning to store data in places other than the system
drive.

I had the work PC re-partitioned w/40 gigs for the system and the
rest for data.

As I slowly build it back up - installing apps as I need them -
I'm taking an image every time I go to lunch. By the week's end,
if my PC hasn't begun doing anything weird again, I'll have an
image of a system that is fully functional for me.

With that image available, my plan is to simply re-image whenever
things even *look* like they're getting flaky.

Along the way, I keep a list of anything I do to the current
image - like installing applications, so when I fall back to an
earlier image I can bring it up to date and then capture that
image as my backup.

Also, if I'm going to do a major install sometime later on - like
the VB.Net development environment or something, I'll fall back
to the last image just for good measure; then do the install and
image again.

First few times I re-imaged on my home PC, I got burned one way
or another. But eventually I learned not to store data on the
system drive and re-imaging became trivial.