cpu running at 100%

[cecil]

about 8 months ago i had to replace my old hard drive[40gig]as it was about to fail, i replaced it with a brand new drive[160gig] loaded it with windows XP pro, the problem i'm having now is the CPU is running at 100% every time i open a progamme, the mouse tends to stutter, and if i'm listening to music the sound the sound breaks up, once the page is loaded everythings fine, i can burn c/ds dvds just takes a bit longer,its no big deal, as everything works, i'm just curious to see if anyone have come across this problem before. BTW my computer is 5years old, the cpu is an athlon 1.4g, graphics card ge-force3,memory 768 ddr pc 2100

[Dv8ted2]

When you open the task manager, do you see anything that you can shut down?

Goto the start menu, select run and type in msconfig. Are there any programs that you can turn off?

Have you did a spyware check? Have you run a virus scan?

[rallynavvie]

Of more import would be to bring up the task manager and see which process (or processes) are running your processor so high.

[redwudz]

What the others said. If you have an external USB drive, I have occasionally had that cause the same problem when a write failed.

But most likely you have something running that is stealing all the CPU cycles. Look for something odd that is using a lot of memory when you go into Task Manager.

There are some trojans/viruses that can cause this also. Some of them are hard to locate. If you have a program listed in processes with a name like NeWPrGam%$ or something strange, very suspicious. Spybot S&D, or others may kill it. You can also go to TrendMicro and use their free online scan.

http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

[Denvers Dawgs]

Are you also running the newest McAfee firwall by chance? For some reason my computer can't run the newest version. When updated my old version to the new my computer bogged down and ran @ 100%. When I unistalled it, and r-reinstalled older version everything was fine again. So I totally uninstalled and re-installed the new version again and same problem. McAfee could never figure out why or how to fix. The new version does work on both my sisters, and friends computers just fine though.....

[cyflyer]

Do you download your music ??????????????
If so then you have a shitload of spyware buggering up your computer. Every single person I know that has kids and download music, their computers are crapped up. Most need a complete format/re-install windows to sort them out. Despite telling them "DO NOT DOWNLOAD MUSIC !!!", its like talking to brick wall, and its the same over and over again.

[akrako1]

make sure you've got dma set for your new hdd.

[Nelson37]

Did this problem begin 8 months ago when the new hard drive was installed, and therefore probably related, or is it more recent, and therefore most likely has nothing to do with the new drive?

Did you install any new or different software when installing the new drive? Is DMA turned on?

[cecil]

this problem only started when i fitted my new drive 8 months ago, i noticed the mouse was juddering while i was loading XP pro, when had to move the mouse to go next and so on. btw how do i set dma for hdd? i use norton av 2005, i have run scans using adaware, spybot, spyblaster, and recently microsoft security centre, no problems there, i also use trend micro to scan my computer once a week. i use to download music from kaaza but that was on the old drive.

[smearbrick1]

First, get rid of Norton. Nothing but a huge resource hog and is a pain in the ass to uninstall.

Second, ensure DMA is enabled by checking the IDE controller under device manager.

[redwudz]

To check DMA/PIO mode within Windows:

Control Panel>System>Hardware>Device Manager>IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers.

From there, right click on one of the channels and choose 'Properties>Advanced Settings'. All drives should be DMA mode. The 'Current Transfer Mode' for Hard drives is usually DMA 4-6 and DVD burners DMA 2-4, DVD ROMs usually DMA 2. If you see any in PIO mode, that can slow things down.

Changing them back may be easy or complicated. First see if you can change them in that window. If not, I usually uninstall the channel and let the OS reinstall it. This will usually take a reboot.

From there, if no luck, get back to us.

****

Have you checked your processes in Task Manager? That would be more likely than a DMA problem. PIO mode would just slow things down and shouldn't affect the CPU.

You can kill processes in Task Manager. The worst that can happen is you will have to reboot. Here's a link to the essential services you don't want to kill:

http://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/EssentialProc.html

Kill everything else starting with the ones labeled with your computer name.

When you run Task Manager it puts a small icon your task bar. It will tell you the CPU usage. It should be green.

If this doesn't work, then you may have to dig deeper, but this should rule out software problems for the most part.

[rallynavvie]

We still haven't heard which process is using up all the processing power. That should be where you start, none of this other stuff. You need to go into your task manager and watch which process is using up the processor all the time. You can sort by processer utilization by clicking on that header so that it brings the process using the processor the most to the top. "System Idle Process" means that much of the processor is not being utilized so you want that "using" your processor when you're idle.

[cecil]

there dont seem to be anything using my processing power in the task manager window, its at 0%, however taking redwudz advice i killed off the services i didn't need seems to improved the problem, i've checked my DMA's on all 3 drives and they are all on, i think i might have to update drivers on my motherboard as its 5 years old now[asus-a7a266]