Pegged processor

[ibjolley]

The processor on my Win 2k laptop is completely pegged at 100% at start up sometimes. It appears to be random, but about half the time I boot up, my processor is floored. The work-around is to simply reboot. This works almost every time. I have checked all Startup folders as well as the run key registry settings to look for anything weird--no luck. I have also run a couple virus scan utilities on it with no luck. I'm hoping this is a known problem with known solution. Any ideas?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[jpm121]

Go into Task Manager and find out what process is eating all the CPU cycles.

 

[ibjolley]

I forgot to mention that the process using up the CPU time is the System Idle Process, which has me confused. I have tried killing every possible non-critical process to see if I could unlock the CPU, but that hasn't worked.

 

[jpm121]

Err.. the System Idle process is basically just a placeholder in Task Manager. If the CPU isn't doing anything else, it shows System Idle getting the resources.

When you say the CPU is pegged, how do you know that? It's normal for a lot to be going on during startup, but once everything's loaded it should be calmed down. If you pull up Task Manager and click Performance, you should be at a nice low level of usage.

Maybe I'm confused but I really don't understand the problem.

 

[ibjolley]

I should have explained the problem more better...sorry.

The problem is that after booting up, the processor stays pegged at 100% until the machine is powered down. In performance tab in task mgr, the processor stays at 100%--even after all processes have been started and the boot sequence is complete. Needless to say, this makes the machine run extremely slowly. Something (i.e. virus, rouge application or something) is causing the processor to use up all the resources.

I have read on various anti-virus sites that there are viruses that cause the CPU to act this way. Unfortunately, I have not been able to identify any of these viruses are on my machine. So I'm not sure what's causing this to happen.

Thanks for the input.

 

[jrbarnett]

Hi,

A quick suggestion: Does your PC have not much RAM? (under 256Mb) and a lot of things loaded in the background?
If so, go to the device manager for the primary and secondary IDE channels and see if they are set to use DMA transfer.
It could be just that with a lack of RAM it is constantly using the virtual memory, which is slow.

John

 

[ibjolley]

John -- thanks for the tip, but I don't think it's the virtual memory. First of all, I have 390MB RAM. Also, this problem started happening out of the blue.. Prior to this, my machine ran fine. In fact, less than half of the memory is used when this occurs. Both IDE channels are setup to use DMA.

 

[DaveInBoston]

Andrew,

I have a similar problem with my desktop machine. The processor is pegged at 100%. However in my case it is the SYSTEM task, not the SYSTEM IDLE TASK, which is consumming all of the processor. I know it happens when I powerup following a shutdown in HIBERNATE. I have not noticed if it happens following a shutdown to SHUTDOWN. Have you found a solution other than rebooting ?

Dave

 

[ibjolley]

Dave -- Sounds like our machines have the same problem. I did not find a solution. I ended up wiping the partition and reinstalling the OS. That fixed it.

-andrew

 

[DaveInBoston]

Well, I seem to have fixed the problem, at least on my machine. I uninstalled the HP DLA software and the problem has not reoccurred in over a month.