Re: Nearly 100% CPU Usage
- From: "Daave" <daave@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:01:01 -0500
Hi, Paul. I see it's been a few days and you're still trying to get to
the bottom of this performance issue. Here's (hopefully) an overview of
the situation:
Although your wife's laptop has had problems in the past with
overheating, that *seems* to have been fixed. You can always run
utilities to get more information. I would start with SpeedFan:
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
Also, what is the model number of this laptop? As Paul pointed out,
certain Dell laptop models have experienced throttling problems:
Latitude E6400
Latitude E6500
Source:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=9799
Malware is always a possibility. This is why PA Bear has recommended
running HijackThis and posting your log to an appropriate Web forum to
get expert advice.
Of course, there is a disitinct possibility you don't have malware. :-)
If this is the case and if you do not have a hardware issue, you have
already been given links to run Process Explorer and search for the
runaway process that way. For your convenience, here they are again:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial129.html
Another thing you can try is to see if you have the same performance
issue in Safe Mode. If you don't, this is very useful information. At
this point, you can configure a Clean Boot:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353
.... and systematically re-enable programs and processes until you notice
the performance hit in order to determine which program/process is
responsible for the sluggishness.
You really need to delete your temp files and defrag your hard drive!
Try this either in Safe Mode or after having configured a Clean Boot.
HTH.
P.S. Security suites, ironically, are often the cause of sluggishness.
Paul Calcagno wrote:
My wife's Dell laptop has really slowed down. She's running XP SP3
with 1.2 gigs of RAM. When I look in Task Manager, the Performance
tab shows CPU usage almost nearly constant at 100%, although it
spikes downward to a few tens of % occasionally. This doesn't sound
correct.
I've got CA (Road Runner) Security Suite running, plus
MalwareByte's-AntiMalware, plus Ad-Aware 2009 installed. None of
these show any viruses, etc. on this machine (occasionally a tracking
cookie). Just today I uninstalled SuperAntispyware Professional
simply because I could never get the program to open up, even after a
10 minute wait. The program used to run just fine. I've never, ever
used a Registry Cleaner on this computer as I've been warned they can
do more harm than good.
I've tried Disk Cleanup on the C drive but that program basically
hangs up. After 5 minutes of waiting for it to calculate how much
disk space would be save, I closed it. The C drive has 15 Gbytes of
free space and 45 Gbytes used. RAM seems to show over 500 MB
available. I haven't defrag'ed this drive in a long time.
Can someone tell me if 100% CPU usage is the reason why everything
takes forever to open, and what would cause such CPU behavior? I have
had what I'd call `cooling problems' due to a dirty fan (fixed) and
poor airflow underneath the computer so I took care of that by
cleaning the fan and propping the laptop up so more air can flow
under it. Is it possible the CPU got damaged from excessive heating?
(The CPU shut down a few times a month ago, seemingly because it got
too hot, but that no longer happens).
Thanks in advance................Paul C.
.
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