Sometimes under no apparent reasoning certain processes will use 100% of the processor, causing it to become really hot and slowing down the overall performance of the computer.
So far I have had trouble with these processes:
trillian.exe, wmplayer.exe, eplorer.exe
I have searched for viruses and spyware with no results. I have all of the Windows updates including SP1.
This Windows installation is a few months old but I've been keeping it relatively ok. I should run a registry cleaner, however. Could that be the problem? Please recommend one. I also have a little under 50 programs installed but usually a max of 5-7 running at any given time. I am pretty low on disk space with 2/60gb left (that's what broadband does to you).

Windows XP Pro
Athlon XP 2000+ with an AMD recommended Coolermaster CPU cooler
512 MB PC2100 DDR RAM
Soyo SY-K7ADA mobo

If you need any more details, I'll be happy to tell you.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and hopefully you can set me on my way to solving it.

windows or software bug. by the way what is trillian? if it is a P2P thing, napster or kazaa like. then it may have gotten a virus. also if u have used up 60 some gigs that too may be the issue. if u have downloaded that much 'junk' get rid of it all. if its songs, or what ever else, burn onto disks and delet. that could be makeing things wierd, can affect swap if u are really low.
also on a next install i recomend doing this. 3GB partiton just for windows, 500MB-5GB partiton for swap only(virtual memory) and the rest for everything else, maybe another for stuff like songs if u download alot of Mp3's
also un needed processes need to be off! i am talking about the system tray icons. all those use memmory and can creat security issues. stuff like AOL, AIM, MSN, Kazaa, Real player, ICQ ect. shut it ALL off. u only need thge windows basics, virus scan and firewall. nothing more. just run the program when u need it. that stuff eats ram and causes so much problems.
i mean people ask me why a system is FUBAR and i see the system tray covering half the bottom of the screen.

also junk like real player and such should beuninstalled. windows media player is just fine and i have had alot of system problems caused by real player over the years.

Somehow, in someway, this can be related to a bad set of drivers on your PC.

Dani had a similar problem when she installed a GeForce Ti4600 (when they were the best on the market..) on her PC.

Try upgrading your graphics drivers, as well as checking for other drivers upgrades.

The ALi chipset has known problems, none fatal. Make sure that you have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers. Trillian should not be a much of a problem, but try GAIM instead http://gaim.sourceforge.net -- it has much the same functionality and lower overhead.

If you are using the on-board AC '97 sound function, dump it; get a decent sound card -- SB Live! or better. The codec-based sound function is a black hole for CPU cycles (the CPU itself generates the sound) and can cause some of the problems you describe, especially with WiMP and MPEG-4 files.

A good registry fixer and general system utility is jv16 Power Tools available from http://www.macecraft.com.

A good system monitor is TinyResMeter from http://perso.accelance.net/~pesoft/trm/us_trm.html

These may or may not fix your problems, but ya gotta start somewhere, and AC '97 sound is the pits in so many ways.

I posted earlier but I guess Dani had to revert the database for some reason. Thanks for all the advice.
i got a 52x cd burner today and started burning all my 20gb of movies to free up some space.

I just ran the jv16 power tools reg cleaner and remove 362 invalid keys. wow.
i don't have that many programs open at any given time, that was a max. When web developing, that's necessary. For example i currently have 27 processes running.
I will try updating my nvidia drivers (i have a geforce4 ti 4200).
i don't use onboard audio, i use a $10 pci sound card haha.
i'm happy with trillian so i'm not changing that.
i will let you know if this happens again and try to aggrivate the problem to see what's wrong.
thanks again for all the advice

Yeap. Sorry about that. I had to revert the database a few times recently, unfortunately, due to tweaking our new system (plus the new server we're on). Everything's working now and I shouldn't have to do it anymore. I think we lost a total of 5 posts and 1 or 2 new members in all. I don't think that's too bad for such a giant upgrade as this was.

Oh, and btw ... my CPU used to also randomly go to 100% quite frequently. I used to think it was due to Seti@Home but it turns out it wasn't. It corrected itself over time. I still don't know what exactly was the culpreit. It started happening right away on my new computer (a 3ghz with hyperthreading technology) on a clean system of WinXP. I thought maybe it was some process that was getting confused with the HT technology emulating 2 processors, cuz 1 processor would go to 100% while the other stayed idle at 1-2%, and yet it would still take down my whole system with it.

first ditch windows meadia player >.> id suggest winamp 2.91 over it, trillian ? what build?

IE with some java / activex / flash has been known to make a pc use 100% of its proc power

Thanks for the info this brought up, I had the same problem, was running a clean verion of XP with 30 gig HD (only 3 or 4 used up) and had no major programs running but it would also sit at 100% after a short period slowing everything up!

I had a 64meg geforce nvidia titanium 2 thingy and had it since 98 but didn't update when I got XP (A big fat I told you so from my mates there!), got the latest XP drivers and all now seems to be drilling along hunky dorey again!

Great!

i was using windows workstation NT4.0
my RpcSs.exe rose to 100% cpu usage
on recomandation on net by some one i removed Netbui protocl and my pc
is very fine
2% cpu usage
:mrgreen: