CPU power drain by unknown process.

[Jo The Veteran]

This problem started 2 or 3 days ago and now that I'm writing this it's also happening for the 4rth time in total. I can describe it as a system lag that could have been caused by a heavy CPU demanding program, like video encoding when run in normal priority. When it happens, i cannot soft reset or shutdown and if i hard reset the PC, it goes away for a while, but it can start again at any given time, more commonly when the PC is on for many hours.
The process is not shown in the task manager



[Attachment 1984 - Click to enlarge]<----(I don't know what this "attachment" thing is, or how to remove it, pardon me)
still CPU is being used at about 80% constantly, 100% now that I'm using Firefox, and that shows at the performance tag



I have nod32 antivirus and the winxp sp2 firewall plus the router's. Additionally I've run the panda antivirus online scan which detected 3 tracking cookies than i deleted and then nothing when i scanned again.
I'm guessing process or hardware fault.
Is there a program that can show where CPU is directed exactly at any given time, maybe to find the file causing this mess and take it from there.
Any other ideas?

[HotDamn!]

Describe any recent downloads.

Does this still happen when you boot into safe mode? Also try to disable your antivirus and see if it goes down, I've heard of this happening with Trend Micro to XP users.

After that just give it a scan with Malwarebytes. Download it from here: http://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html

[aedipuss]

your numbers in the task manager add up to 100% 20% ff and 80% idle. the weird thing is system idle shouldn't show up in cpu usage/history in the performance tab. somethings not quite right. i'd use gmer and check for rootkits that a/v can't find.

[Jo The Veteran]

HotDamn!
Mostly videos and subtitles, no small or large programs, not recently though.
This happens after lots of hours of stressful PC work, mainly video encoding that i do allot at this time, it doesn't show at once and thus it doesn't show at the safe mode. Shutting down the AV was one of the first things i tried, still the lag remained. I will try Malwarebytes after the next boot.
aedipuss
The numbers play mainly with the process used at that specific time you look at them, and the idle is no CPU usage but the opposite actually. I happen to use ff then, thus it went up 20%, now it's 0% ff, still the performance tab shows a steady 70-80% CPU usage.

[Jo The Veteran]

Downloaded Gmer rrotkit/malware search on C:/ produced these results.

and these are the processes described by GMER, if you can make heads or tails out of it.
They are categorized by kernel time and the last on top of the screen that can't be seen is the smss.exe file in system32,
also the one underlined is the GMER.exe that is changed into a random .exe so mallware programs will let it run.

[Jo The Veteran]

Holy shhhh... am in trouble now, aren't I.
This is what process explorer shows

[Jo The Veteran]

ok i have rebooted and now show 0% hardware interrupts and the system runs fine.
From what i read in other posts interrupts up to 80% of CPU usage could be caused by an IRQ resource error (and DMA to PIO error but that checked ok), when two major devices, like graphics card and sound card use the same number and from what i saw this exact thing happens in my system (IRQ 16).
I just don't get why this happens now of all times? Why didn't it happen one month or a year ago?
In any case I'll move the sound card into another PCI slot tomorrow, so that it could be assigned another IRQ number and see from there.

[redwudz]

Something you might look into if the PC is the one in your computer details. The PCI slot directly under the video card usually shares a IRQ with the video card, so not a good slot to use if you can avoid it. IRQ problems can be a PITA.

EDIT:

Attachment 1984<----(I don't know what this "attachment" thing is, or how to remove it, pardon me)

It's an attachment that didn't register with our site. Like with the old PHP setup before if you previewed a attachment or graphic before posting, it loses the link. You should be able to delete them, though, but you may have to move the text lines away from it. But not worth messing with most times.

[Jo The Veteran]

First time I've heard that all those years i deal with PCs, still i really hope it's the thing causing my PITA, or it's square 1 for me again.
BTW, I checked with Malwarebytes and I'm clean.

[redwudz]

I think the IRQ video card problem only applies to VGA cards as I haven't heard it come up with PCI-E cards. I rememeber having to move PCI cards around at times because of IRQ conflicts, but newer OSs and motherboards seem to have resolved most of those issues. But it's a long shot.

With XP, I usually just did a OS reinstall when I had weird problems, but that's a bigger PITA.

[aedipuss]

the gmer rootkit scan looks fine, but the next time it's acting up load gmer then click on the processes tab to see if there are any hidden processes running. they will show up in red.

hopefully it's just a hardware issue though...

[Jo The Veteran]

aedipuss, the screenshot was taken DURING a slowdown, all the posts up until the 7nth one that i said i rebooted were written while i was experiencing the lag. So if you think that the root thing was clean, at that time, then it's not a malware. Besides, I've checked it with malwarebytes and it came out clean.

I left the pc on last night and it presented the lag again now that i checked so I'm pretty sure it's an IRQ conflict. I think it has something to do with encoding HD 1920x1080 videos. The video RAM has to be used allot for that size of resolution hence the video card is used allot too.

EDIT: While i was writing this, I restarted the video encoding and the lag presented almost instantly, hardware interruptions percent is at about 90% right now that the encoder is running.

Shutting down. I'll move the sound card later on today.

[Moontrash]

first off, go into msconfig and and uncheck that "jusched" box...go into services.msc and and set java quick starter to disabled. The one thing i notice right off is your O&O defrag entry. If thats been set to automatic in services then that thing will defrag occasionally and it uses some serious cpu to defrag in the background and can cause a slow down. you may be able to set the app to use a "low" priority but i would set it to manual and only defrag when you need to, by going onto the start menu and clickin on O&O defag, or via a Desktop shortcut.

[Jo The Veteran]

Moontrash,
jusched is a java service that i need, and so is quick starter. O&O defrags at idle priority when the system is doing nothing else, which almost never happens, still if i forget the pc on with no jobs to do, defragmentation of the disk is the next best thing for it to do.
Besides, the findings from process explorer indicate that the problem is a hardware error or a virus, since all the virus test came clean then it has to be the IRQ thing.

redwudz
this is an old system i have with an AGP Graphics card, so IRQ conflicts are not a resolved matter for it.

I've changed the sound card location from PC3 to PC5 and it assumed IRQ 18, instead of 16 which is also the IRQ of the Graphics card. Strangely though it was already far from the AGP card, in slot 3 and it still assumed the same IRQ.

I'm going to test with video encoding now.

[Moontrash]

jusched is just a service that runs in the background to see if you have the latesst java installed...checks with suns server. its not necessary to have running 24/7...java quick start is not necassary either...java will load up when you start your browser...it may take a few seconds longer but its RAM wasted imo.

doesnt matter even at idle priority..the cpu load will take a hit because as you've mentioned, you have an old system...perfect reason to manually defrag instead of using the RAM to keep it running in the background. try it and see

[Jo The Veteran]

Well, it is not THAT old man, i mean come on! 2GHz and 2GB or RAM! That may not mean anything to a gaming computer but for an encoder/downloaded it's more than enough. Also the fact is that i use java for programming, so i run it frequently and i need it up to date, but i can always shut those services down if the problem persists.
Still, if the problem was caused by those two services, don't you think that THOSE would consume the CPU and not the hardware interrupts service? And if they did, i could always shut them down from task manager. The problem is that whatever causing the delay CANNOT be stopped, it cannot even been seen with the standard winxp task manager.

[aedipuss]

when you set up this computer did you turn on "plug and play" os in the bios? and turn off acpi? winXP is normally a irq sharing os and will put most hardware on irq9. if you've changed things after installing winxp it may require an os re-install to switch to the standard hal rather than the sharing hal.

[Jo The Veteran]

I don't remember doing anything of the sort, however it could have been turned on but default by the motherboard constructor.
This is how the IRQs are distributed now that i moved the sound card.

It used to be after the Nvidia card again but with the same IRQ.
Notice that i STILL have devices sharing IRQs, just not so important or resource demanding i guess.

[Jo The Veteran]

Encoding finished, no problems yet, I guess that was it.
Thanks for all the help guys.
I hope i won't have to revisit this thread.

[AlinaVastag84]

I saw the problem described in the begining of the thread in a computer of a friend. The core was going to 100 percent with no application started. In the end after all sort of testes we found that the cooler was depleeted on half CPU, only about a half was cooled. After replacing the cooler with a new one (silver grease included) the CPU started work perfectly again. That`s no mean you have this problem, but it`s worth a try .

[Jo The Veteran]

So it was a bad placement of the heat sink i take it, and maybe inadequate amount of conductive grease too.
In any case mine works fine, temperature is at 35 Celsius steady when i start running the CPU at 100%.
Even if the fan isn't working at all i have a huge heat sink on top of the chip, the Thermaltake sonic tower v2. It cools the CPU adequately enough even without a fan. So it couldn't be that. Thanks for suggesting it though.

One thing though, what was the sensor reading for the CPU temperature? Was it ok like mine or was it overheating?

[redwudz]

I don't think it's much of a problem sharing IRQs between some devices. Your IRQ 9 seems to be used by similar devices. But usually the video card needs it's own IRQ as it can use a lot of resources. I remember when I used a 939 MB that I did have to juggle PCI slot devices around when I set it up. With newer MBs, so much is incorporated into the MB, such as sound chips and LAN chips, that IRQ conflicts are less common. And I think newer MBs have better methods of assigning IRQs to avoid conflict.

But if your problem is resolved, that's great.

[Jo The Veteran]

Well, mine had LAN and audio on-board, however the audio card burned down or something after very little use, generally on-board sound cards are extremely sensitive, i had 4 motherboards with them, all burned and died after some use. That's why i had to place a PCI sound card on the PC. However it worked fine for a loooong time sharing IRQ with the graphics card. So i have no idea why it started acting that way recently.
PCs and women, i just can't figure them out sometimes.

I think I'll change my signature too, to "Whatever doesn't kills us, makes us stronger".
It just feels allot like that these days.