Consistent CPU spiking on fresh OS reload

[fl00d3d]

I *just* reloaded my OS. It's a fresh install of WinXP Pro SP2, all patches, latest drivers, very few programs installed (and all of the programs are the latest programs).

You'd think everything would be running perfectly smooth. Right? Well, it is .. except for every 5-10 seconds when the CPU spikes to 100% without me doing ANYTHING......



Keep in mind that the OS is near perfect and I'm not even running anything special (ie. not uploading/downloading files, not surfing an intense website, not playing a game, etc.).

[fl00d3d]

Here is another screenshot which shows all processes that are running during a cpu spike:

[StoneCold]

u mean when u move a window round everything seems to just start glitching and sh*t?

[fl00d3d]

No, I can close all programs (except for normal system stuff) .... and then walk away from my computer ... and it will keep doing it over and over again (every 10 seconds or so).

[fl00d3d]

Here's another screenshot for you. It is of my performance monitor. You can see that the other system resources are fine, its just the cpu spiking.

[ratty]

This prob wont help =D

I had same problem on my older pc....I dont use it anymore and it would randomly come and go....maybe cpu is dying?

[fl00d3d]

Nah, 100% a software issue. I just reloaded the OS and everything was fine before that. Plus if it were a hardware issue it'd be sporadic.

[danpaul88]

The second post shows that task manager itself is using 50% and explorer.exe the other 50%, which suggests there might be a problem with a windows service which is hanging and when the two programs try to access it they eat up lots of CPU time.


I would suggest installing all windows updates and seeing if the problem goes away.



EDIT: And also make sure you have no explorer windows open with video files in (it will use a lot of CPU generating thumbnails) and that you also have no video files on your desktop (same reason).

[SpAzErMaN]

No disk in the drive that keeps spinning up, and then down, etc..?

What about Windows XP Service Pack 3? It shouldnt help, since it wasnt doing that before, but you never know.

Seems as if some program is starting, stopping again, and then using a wackload of resources to start the program again. Could be an install error. Dont really know Try shutting down all your processes (explorer too, you can always start it again, or it will auto start) and seeing if it stops. Just leave the Taskmanager.exe up.

[fl00d3d]

I did some research and went on a hunch ... that there might have been a "compromise" (malware, virus, trojan) and so I restored back to a recent Restore Point ... and wa la ... no problems at all.

I'm guessing one of the utility programs I downloaded in the last 24 hours was infected with something. Sadly, I've only been on reputable sites. -_-

[Grimes [3rd ID]]

Maybe the food on your renegade disk gave the computer a virus?

Get it??

lmao. So funny!

[fl00d3d]

I can't decide whether I'm pissed that my freshly installed/configured Operating System was plaugued with a malicious file...

Or if I'm happy that I caught it in time and that I had a recent Restore point to go back to.

I think I'm just happy that everything is fine again. For now (assuming I don't re-download whatever it is that apparently destroyed my CPU).

[SpAzErMaN]

Its funny, because I do all kinds of stuff on the internet, and... dont really use any sort of virus/malaware protection at all

Glad yours is fixed. Nice Joke Killer.

[fl00d3d]

Yeah, I haven't either....

But the funny thing is the ONLY thing I've used this new reloaded OS for is installing official programs from official sites, that I've used before. Yet somehow I got infected. I'm wondering if maybe something finally triggered on a file from a different partition that I had saved. I dunno.

Nonetheless, something definitely wasn't right ... and it's definitely better now.