System CPU overusage

[h8today]

Windows XP Pro repaired with XP home disc
512 MB 2100 DDR RAM
Athlon XP 2000+

I have a problem with which either System or services rapidly fluctuates between 0% and 90% of my CPU Usage. It tends to be around 60% most of the time, and the rest of the space is taken up between by svchost. it first started happening about a week ago when playing games. the my computer would start off fine and then get to 100%, slowing down my game. I figured this was because the ram at first, but ran scan disk and ad-aware anyways and it seemed to fix it. It would still show as 100% in game, but didn't affect gameplay, and went back to normal outside of the game. It worked ok for a few days and now it's back and not working again. it shows as 100% constantly and my computer slows down slowly untill after about 10 or 15 minutes, even idling, it all but freezes (as in I can move my pointer but not do anything)

I've tried virus scan, and I've read a few more topics on this, but haven't seen anything that was my problem. any help you can offer would be appreciated, and if you need any more info, I can supply you with it easily.

[viperman224]

I think its time for a full re-load

[GReddy4u]

I had the same problem recently! Heres a few things that can fix it. 1- Re-Install windows if you have the disk
2- If u remember when ur cpu usage was normal, do a system restore back to that date
3- Make sure there isnt any virus's by scanning
Having multiple programs running increases cpu usage by alot also

[suRoot]

ok, there is a process called system idle, this when the pc is idle pushes the CPU usage upto 99% or so.

This sounds like you have a virus or somthing, you installed the anti blaster etc patches?

what fire wall/anti virus you use?

[Piddyful]

ok, there is a process called system idle, this when the pc is idle pushes the CPU usage upto 99% or so. This sounds like you have a virus or somthing, you installed the anti blaster etc patches? what fire wall/anti virus you use?

I agree, there is a system idle that does push 99% when idle but if you're looking at the performance tab of the task monitor, then what you are seeing is actual usage. I would say you've got some p2p action going off all in your harddrive. You know, other gamers looking around trying to find the files they want using the desktop client you might have installed for the "secure" delivery of your game files. Or you're hosting advertisements on the web so companies don't actually have to pay servers to do it for them. Basically I would look for Trojan/spyware, peer to peer kinda stuff. Run Ad-aware, then run Spybots Search & Destroy 1.2 where you can also look at you're startup list to omit bad stuff from autoloading when you boot, then the key is to then use Regcleaner and clean out any listings you reconize as bad then do the "do them all" registry cleanup. If you don't do the Regcleaner, they just seam to come back. Also run Ad-aware and Spybots A COUPLE TIMES when you do them. You'd be suprised how these things just don't want to split.

[christation]

I'm having a similar problem h8today is, and am wondering if it could be a hardware issue? My cpu jumps to 100% upon launch of any app or the use of a feature in an app. Just seems the cpu load should not spike to 100% all the time, am I wrong?

[Piddyful]

If you run Win98 or WinME it will go to 100%, I remember from when I ran it. But obviously only when you're running an app.

[christation]

XP Pro

[MAD_DOG]

Do you have Norton installed? Do you have DiskKeeper installed? If yes uninstall them and see if that works.

[christation]

Norton Personal Firewall and Norton Antivirus... but how could this be the issue? Wouldn't a simple disabling of them achieve the same result? Thanks!

[steosaur(oWn)]

this is an old thread, your cpus and graphics cards prob can't handle the games, upgrade and clean your computers

[h8today]

this isn't very old...and my CPU and graphics card can handle it just fine. I dont know what the problem was but it went away after a few days...which basically means I'm sitting around waiting for it to happen again.

I already mentioned that I had run a Virus scan and ad-aware. I do have all the windows upgrades/patches installed. The problem is I cant tell what kind of firewall I have up because I'm on a college network and they dont really know crap about computers. That probably means it's just the windows firewall, but it seems to be messing up my gaming pretty bad (some games lag worse than when I was on a 56k, cant host games period)

Next time it happens I think I'm just gonna scrap my computer and buy a new one this time instead of building my own. I've had all sorts of problems with this one, most of them I could fix by myself but I had to spend about 200 bucks fixing this before when I couldn't figure out what was wrong with it

[christation]

this is an old thread, your cpus and graphics cards prob can't handle the games, upgrade and clean your computers

Old thread? Nope.

2.5 P4 and a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256 MB... so you are wrong again.


Any other ideas Mr. just got oWn'ed, I mean Mr. steosaur(oWn)? :evil:

[MAD_DOG]

Never mind thought I say it that's all. Also just reformat your headache will go away. Like I tell my friends, there like; how to I reformat my computer? I show them once and have them do it 5 times in a row after that they know how to and understand how easy and fast it is then sometimes trying to fix a glitch like the one you have. Simple easy 5 minutes.

[JiGsta]

My brothers comp(win2k) had this problem. svchost was using upto 70% of cpu which equaled to 100% cpu usage and made the comp extremely slow. I've just fixed it though. Go to your task manager and see if you have a program called 'winlog.exe' running. If its there, it's the problem. You can either delete it or rename it. It's located in your windows/system32 folder as 'winlog.exe' and 'winlog.exe.pol'. Do NOT delete WINLOGON.EXE, as that is NOT the problem file. Anyway, this 'winlog.exe' seems to be some kind of virus. If you have firewall software (zone alarm) you can see that it tries to send outgoing information over and over again to different addresses, which probably explains why it hogs all your cpu power.

btw, having system idle process use 99% cpu is good if u guys haven't realized yet lol...

[MAD_DOG]

winlog.exe seems to be some sort of trojan check it out on google.com

[JiGsta]

winlog.exe seems to be some sort of trojan check it out on google.com

found out what it was http://www.sophos.com/virusinfo/analyses/w32agobotlf.html

[Dark_Omen]

I had this problem. What I did to fix it was to do a system restore. Once I did that my cpu runs normally not more than 30% when playing games.

[MAD_DOG]

What games you playing haha any high end game like UT2004 and FarCry take up like 100% of the CPU not the kernal though. Even if your on a 2.8ghz+

[Dementia]

Having a simliar problem.....and boyfriend is mostly complaining that it's messing up his games...

Nothing I've done seems to help for long, though when I run the desktop in 'safe' mode, it doesn't spike hardly at all (would be great if I could go online in 'safe' mode too)

Any ideas? Would appreciate any and all help.

I'm running a T2482 emachine with AMD AthlonXP, 512 MB RAM, 80Gig harddrive. I haven't been downloading anything other than very simple scripts for my website (all from sites I trust and have never had a problem with before). We did recently upgrade the memory chip, but that was adding just one chip.....and it had been working great till this latest extreme annoyance. I've run all the anti-virus and anti-spyware stuff I can think of and nothing shows up for viruses.....and I keep taking out spyware and deleting the backups and it's still messing up....sometimes....
It seems to go away sometimes and then it comes back.
Hmmm......I'm running out of ideas.....any help out there?