System slow and 100% cpu usage

Without specifics it's hard to narrow your problem down. You could have a virus, spyware infection, spamming software infection, hard drive rights policy that does not have the OS hard drive manager listed with full access rights, etc. ... BUT I have a feeling you simply have too little RAM. If you are running Windows XP at least 512 MB should be installed but 1 GB is far better. I recommend that: You at least double the amount of RAM you have. That will automatically improve things. If more improvement is required, check your hard drive to ensure OS system listed as having full access rights to the hard drive, run a virus scan (there are online scanners available) and obtain a reliable spyware tool (http://www.microsoft.com/ security spyware software ... assuming you're running Windows) and run a scan to check for spyware, malware and known spamming software infections.

Good luck!

How do I make sure the OS Hard Drive manager is listed with full rights? See other posts also. Thanks!

quit right,

you should add your ram up to 512M or 1G for your 64bits cpu. it will work good and

assemble a firewall in yoiur computer.

check virus at first! and then scan yoiur disk with scandisk instruction.

What version of Windows are you using? First thing you should do is turn off the indexing system It will kill any machine regardless of ram. Keep a watch on the HDD access led. That will tell you whether it is memory intensive operation or disk I.O.

Get a free utility called ezmem from e-systems.ro . It will show you exact usage of ram as well as help you in recovering unused ram. Works even with Vista.

My computer has the same problem. when it is trying to think, the HDD access light will stay on forever til it finally catches up. I do not have the internet at home, only at work. Is there a virus, spyware program that I can download to a disk? What does the HDD light staying busy mean? How do I turn off indexing? with ezmem? Running XP, 640 mb DDR Ram, Athlon 64 processor like the guy that posted the original question.

Hello Heart Cooks Brain,

I'm sure you have found lots of good info from folks at CR4. I too used to have this problem. I had a Compaq with 256K, had 100% usage, took forever to do even the simplest task, etc... At the time I was running Windows 2000 Professional. I upgraded to XP and the problem only got worse. I FIXED IT! I through the Compaq in the trash and got a system with 1GB ram and a large hard disk running XP. Wallah! Problem solved. Good luck.

johnjohn

Do a virus scan. Also a spyware scan. You need at least 1Gb of ram.

Hey! I have the exact same problem right now, I have been trying to figure it out. I have 640mb ddr ram and the computer used to be fast as hell. I have the AMD athlon 64 too, I bet it is the same motherboard. I am not linked to the net on it so it shouldn't be a virus. I run a program like command and conquer and it has to stop and think for up to a few minutes before it catches up to itself, then it does it again, very frustrating. I wonder about the ram, why would it be slow now?

Before It would play the games with the latest graphics and I could build a battlefield of soldiers and Tanks and move them all at once with no slowing down. Now it is like the atari 2600 trying to operate windows XP.

I have not installed anything more than I had before, I have dumped everything I can, I have removed programs that use a lot and I have defragmented it twice. I Checked everything for conflict issues that I can think of. The computer does not know that there is anything wrong when I run a check on it. I only have the basic diagnostics...dr. watson and dxdiag.exe

Is there a free software I can download to perform diagnostics on it?

Why would it be slow now and not before since I made no negative changes?

It is not only running programs that I get the "Retard error" (stopping to think for five minutes before saying okay thats what I'm supposed to do), it even stops to catch up when I click the start button or perform the smallest task like minimizing a window, what is this?

I too have the 100% usage and duplicate tasks. I think the duplicate tasks come from this: When you click a button or icon and it does nothing, you click it again and again...when it finally catches up, it says..."i have to do this process for everytime he clicked the button". Please let me know if you find a solution.

Hi,

Just a thought, turn off the paging file. You'll find it under system/ performance tools. Set it at 0Mb for all HDD. You'll need at least 1Gb RAM (2 Gb better). I have AMD 64Bit and it rocks. NO PAGING FILE!!!!!

Good luck.

If you have 640mb, is that three sticks of 126? Some motherboards don't like asymetric RAM population. So if you had a stick of 512 and a stick of 126 it might only see one stick depending on the slot its in.

Where do you find RAM in units of 126? 128, yes, but 126? Is this a typo? Because of the nature of binary addressing, RAM comes in quantities that are powers of 2.

OOOOOOOOOOOOPs

Sorry

It has 2 Ram Cards, one is 512mb and the other is a 128mb for a total of 640, I have one more slot to put ram in

HCB, will your system accept higher-density RAM cards? It might be better to pull them all and go with, say, 1 GB cards if your system will accept them. There are different RAM-bus (as opposed to RAMBUS) standards. Do you know which one your system uses?

Check under the window folder, then under temp and see if you have any files there. I bet you probably do. Sometime even after you defrag it, if there are temp file that windows think you are using, it will slow your computer down, too. You can delete those temp files and see if it improve.

MidniteFighter

Funny thing is,I had a similar problem recently. Google pack added a new program, anti spyware it was, and it slowed my computer drastically! See this blog for more info....

When I am runing WINDOWS on my computers, I always load a computer performance monitor and keep it available on the task bar. Periodically I like to check the "HEART-BEAT" of my computer especially if it slows down and I want to see if its "dead-in-the-water", accessing virtual memory functions (where RAM memory contents are temporally placed on the HDD [HARD DISK DRIVE] because RAM is to small), or ect. The following programs are great for keeping your finger on the pulse-rate of your computer:

Windows 98 SE: sysmon.exe (usually found in c:windows/system32/sysmon.exe)

Windows XP: perfmon.exe (usually found in c:windows/system32/perfmon.exe)

I am not for sure about other Windows but probably the same.

These system monitors can display real time info about your RAM such as available memory size, used (allocated) memory size, and swap file size (size of memory written to the HDD for virtual memory functions).

Also these system monitors let you check the HDD read/write activities of your computer. This can tell you alot because the HDD is the biggest speed bottle-neck of the system.

Since the HDD is the biggest speed bottle-neck of the system, when your computer runs out of available memory and has to goto virtual memory, the speed changes from flying-in-a-jet-plane to walking speed. This can happen because you have to many programs loaded and running, or just one large program running, or one normal size program running with a large data set.

Also, programs that have "MEMORY-LEAKS" (programs that request use of available memory but the program does not properly "UNREQUEST" or soes not return the memory to the syatem so that that memory can be placed in the alailable memory pile) that prevents memory from being available after the program is closed.

Also, RAM can become fragmented similar to a HDD by running and closeing programs that request available memory and then return the memory to the available memory. When you boot your computer up, RAM is unfragmented and from then on it gets broken and reused all the time. My experience with "XP" seems that it manages this problem very well but "98 SE" has fragmented problems.

For "98 SE", when RAM is fragmented (system monitor observations) I have experimentally found that Microsoft "wordpad.exe" (apperantly since it is a native program) will cause the system to defrag RAM and return much memtory to available memory using the following technique:

1. Create a large text file approx 20 to 40 Megabytes.

2. Run "wordpad.exe" for this large text file. It will take some time (maybe 1 minute) to load the file and be ready. In this step, memory manager must defrag memory and arrange the memory to be contigous and/or place other allocated memory into virtual memory.

3. Last, close wordpad. GUESS-WHAT!!! if you check system monitor, approx 100 Megabytes will be available.

Also, "98 SE" can have serious slow-down problems when I perform some file-sharing activities on my home "LAN" with other "XP" computers. These symptoms are after I use "windows explorer" nothing works for about 1 minute. My fix for this problem is to just power-down and reboot.

Another problem is that "XP" contains an "WINDOWS UPDATE AUTOUPDATE" program "wuaueng.dll" usually found in "c:windows/system32/wuaueng.dll". My computer choked on this program (task manager info showed this) and really slowed down my computer. When I GOOGLED, I found that this program can be replaced by hacking, backdoor, trojan horse, or ect. and windows will at times run this program when it feels like it. I found it and deleted it but "XP" reloaded it automatically. If my computer slows down, I check "task mnager" and see if "wuaueng.dll" is running. If it is, I terminate it with "END PROCESS".

IT HAS TAKEN ME A LOT OF TIME TO LEARN THIS BUT HERE IT IS

=======================================================

EXPERIENCE IS A TUFF TEACHER

FIRST IT GIVES THE TEST

THEN IT GIVES THE LESSON

Windows is its own punishment. I wrote Windows apps and kernel code (device drivers, mainly. All flavors) for years, and I've seen both sides of that gawdawful stinking mess. I've finally abandoned Windows wholesale and I don't miss it one bit. It's incredible. I have a computer sitting on my desk that outperforms a Cray 1 by 2000%, and it's a pig when running Windows. Don't even mention Vista. The biggest, most hyperbloated piece of malware ever to be late seeing the light of day.

Microsoft is not a technology company. Microsoft is a marketing company. When will people finally get it?

Hi,

Up the RAM to 1 Gig like most of your replies said. Install CC Cleaner form the web (it's free) and run it,make sure your windows service packs are up to date. Install Norton ($35 to $75) and make a "Ghost" (copy) of your hard drive on a spare or portable hard drive. It isn't a matter of if it will screw up it is when. "Ghost" gives you complete recovery from the time you ghosted the drive. Don't set "Ghost" to automatic backups and don't turn on "Go-Back". Run "Ghost" whenever you feel the need to back up the hard drive. Oh yeh.......do these things in the order listed!

Hydrax

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/default.mspx The above link has numerous free tools that are very good for analyzing your computer. Task manager in Windows doesn't show everything that is running while Process Explorer available for download at the link above will show every one and all the handles, threads, etc. running under them. Regmon will show whats being accessed in the registry real time. Filemon will show real time file access. Numerous others. 256 ram is probably light but not sure it would cause this type of problem. You need to find which process is using the CPU and then verify that it is a legitimate Windows process. Sometimes virus' will be named after a legitiimate Windows process so as to fool the user into thinking it's a normal process when, in fact, it's a virus that has the computer locked up while it scans for info or whatever. If you have more than one process in Task Manager with the same name, that might be your problem.

I can think of two things that can lead to the 100% CPU uses right off. First, you need about 10x the RAM you are now running, especially if you do any multi-tasking with multi-windows. Next is the hard drive. A hard drive with a boot sector failure or HD that has crashed, will show 100% CPU usage nearly every time.

or it could be both the ram and the Hard Drive. I would start with the HD, but you need a gig or 2 of Ram to do modern software. A brutal truth these days.

Al

If you're running Linux, start a terminal and type 'top" at the prompt. This will give you a list, updated once per second or so, of all processes running on your system, the memory each process consumes, the percent CPU load per process, and a wealth of other information.

If you're running some flavor of WinDoze, go to www.sysinternals.com for a number of extremely useful tools that can diagnose your system - including tools to check for rootkits, spyware, and other malware that may be running on your system. The guy that wrote these tools is the same guy who found the DRM rootkit Sony was sneaking onto customers' systems via their DRM-enabled music CDs. Boy did Sony get a well-deserved black eye from that debacle (I refuse to buy Sony products because of their flagrant contempt for their customers, flaming Dell laptop batteries notwithstanding).

Beyond that, I'd say invest in as much system RAM as you possibly can. Insufficient RAM will cripple your system regardless of how blazing fast your CPU is. Too little RAM and your hard disk will thrash, endlessly swapping pages in and out memory to keep up with all the processes running on your system, and modern operating systems all run lots and lots of processes behind the scenes. Not only does thrashing consume a lot of CPU cycles waiting for pages to swap, but it'll eventually wear out your hard drive. 256 MB of RAM puts your system in a virtual wheelchair. Even worse is running WinDoze bloatware on top of that. Get RAM. Lots of it.

-e

I found this book useful for Win XP, ya puter will love how ya tweak its performance.

Hacking Windows XP

by Steve Sinchak

http://www.tweakxp.com/

hello

its is simple system driver problem

if unfamiliar with system--reinstall

If only the world were so simple - and simplistic. Sigh...

Had kind of the same problem with HP laptop. Thought it was some virus gobbling up resources. Friend looked at it and pointed out that I should not have more than one virus scanner installed. I thought the more virus scanners the better. How wrong. Deleted AVG and kept McFee Virus Scan. Problem solved.

If ya do a, CTRL/ALT/Delete, then click the "Processes", one can review which processes is using up the cpu time, then determine if its useful or something ya download from a site visited which ya don't need. The go to the control panel and remove it.