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CPU usage maxed in XP SP3
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rj2046 View Drop Down
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Posts: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rj2046 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: CPU usage maxed in XP SP3
    Posted: 05 February 2010 at 7:27pm
yeah, maybe the sharks would eat it!LOL
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jawz101 View Drop Down
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Posts: 470 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jawz101 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 February 2010 at 7:07pm
haha.  you can always throw it in a swimming pool and see what he says
MCDST, MCP, MS MSIS, CTANS Graduate Certificate Information Assurance, Infragard
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rj2046 View Drop Down
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Posts: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rj2046 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 February 2010 at 8:37pm
Thanks. I'm very happy to know i can go to manufacturers support for help.
 
Now feeling awkward(sp?;) about posting this notwithstanding, my problem evidently is in my WINDOWS Office suite installation which has long had (albiet infrequent) crashing issues.
 
A WORD file I keep which is all a bunch of Links to files within my PC was being closed improperly then recovered by the system all without much a clue until recently. I cut away a major portion of it into a new one, and deleted the old one. Now the CPU USAGE max issue has gone away.
 
Thanks to this, I've upgraded my Anti virus, totally backed up my system partition and so i can say i feel safe now thanks to a WINDOWS instability problem.
 
It may have been better to have crashed and burned as i might have had an a reason to get my boss to buy a new computer with WINDOWS 7. But in reality, i would have just switched hard disks and trudged back on my merry way.
 
Thanks all for your help.
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jawz101 View Drop Down
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Posts: 470 		Post Options Post Options   Quote jawz101 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 February 2010 at 6:59pm
if xp I'd run chkdsk /r & in vista on up I'd do chkdsk /b (i think that's it)
these are the most comprehensive checks from reading the help sections
- they say stuff like 'implies /f' and stuff so it does the /f check + more

if you get errors once I'd rerun it again and again until it passes cleanly
also, find your hd's manufacturer website & use one of their hard drive test tools on it
MCDST, MCP, MS MSIS, CTANS Graduate Certificate Information Assurance, Infragard
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rj2046 View Drop Down
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Posts: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rj2046 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 February 2010 at 5:10pm
Thanks, I was thinking along those lines i.e. entire CPU load within Windows. I even ran a chkdsk last eve and got some messages about errors but unfortunately no full log report to study so i couldn't get any idea of the total problem. Fortunately i use a backup Hardrive which should have the entire system ready to boot with all my critical info. I use BounceBack which bailed me out of a Hard Disk failure in 2006 as well. I'll run a chkdsk /? to find a scheduling option for next boot time.
 
Thank you very much
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mikediack View Drop Down
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Posts: 15 		Post Options Post Options   Quote mikediack Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 February 2010 at 4:55pm
I'd wager that your harddrive is failing. I've noticed (had it happen about 3 times since I got with XP in 2001), that if the harddrive is beginning to fail badly with LOTS of bad sectors, then Windows pretty much locks up hard trying to read it, and all of the CPU load seems to be internal to the OS itself rather than your applications, so proves hard to track down using PE etc. I presume this is the system trying DMA and switching back to PIO endlessly etc, since you get similar symptoms under Linux...

My advice, try setting up a chkdsk (including checking the disc surface) to occur at boot time, reboot the PC and see what happens - if you start to see a LOT of problems, then your hard disk has had it.

mike
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rj2046 View Drop Down
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Posts: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rj2046 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 February 2010 at 3:39pm

Since this problem has started to occur 3 days ago, WINDOWS Explorer is failing to auto start in my start up directory. Also my AVAST! AV application is erroring out and failing to load. ( I have a trouble report out to them ). My theory then is that either WINDOWS or AVAST! has corrupted code which upon auto-start at boot time fails, leaving something constantly DPC'ing. These are in USER Mode.   Is there a tool I can use to find which application is issuing DPC's?  

Interestingly, in WINDOWS "Task Manager",  what used to be "system idle time" is now logging the CPU USAGE to multiple various Process's most notably LSASS.exe, but again, I regain use of the CPU quite easily showing very little sluggishness over normal.
 
Any help, ?  Thank you.
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Posts: 10 		Post Options Post Options   Quote rj2046 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 February 2010 at 4:49pm
Long time sysinternals fan, first time for me to use these forums, Thanks for the opportunity.
 
First time I have ever seen my performance maxed this way without fixing by re-boot.
 
Using Windows Task Manager, the performance window shows full brite green meaning CPU usage 100%. Using Perf Monitor found that the "User time"  and  DPCs queued / sec are similarly maxed.
 
Using task manager I've eliminated all applications until no application is present anymore at all.
No process in the "processes tab" is revealed to be the culprit.
 
Iv'e even stopped services trying to locate the culprit but have not been successful. It's a Pentium 4 CPU 2GHZ, 768 MB RAM which of which 360 MB are availible according to Task Manager.
 
Re-boot didn't fix it  (unless it was restarted after I started Youtube then didn't return to normal after i closed it). I could check that.  No fancy CPU intensive apps. This is a 2002 Gateway using WORD, EXCEL, Quickbooks, Media player, and IE. for a small business
 
Thanks for any advice on how to find the problem
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