100% CPU, can't find offending process

Rozzy85

Rozzy85

Rozzy85

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I'm having to use this old computer I have (P4 3.2GHz) as my current one is broken at the moment. Its just had a fresh install of WinXP and only has a few programs installed.

At random, some process starts using up the whole CPU or so it would seem. The computer grinds to a halt and as I type this the text is stuttering and everything is sluggish.

Normally I'd just kill the process through task manager but there's nothing listed that is using the whole CPU, they all read '00' usage. Occasionally the system idle process will appear and then disappears. I've tried closing everything and killing random unimportant processes to see if I could find out what's doing it but so far I've had no luck. The only way to stop it is to restart. It only happens a couple of times and some days it never happens.
 
You have got Task Manager set to show processes for all users?

The other alternative is to try Process Explorer, it will give you more information than task manager can.
 
I tried the show all processes but nothing new appeared.

I've just installed Process Hacker and it's listing something called 'Interrupts' that is using 100% of the CPU. I'm guessing these are hardware interrupts or something but I can't terminate it or seem to do anything with it in anyway.
 
I had a similar problem a long time ago although that was an AMD machine. Ended up being something iffy with the HDD controller drivers, might be worth checking everything is up to date.
 
rpstewart said:
I had a similar problem a long time ago although that was an AMD machine. Ended up being something iffy with the HDD controller drivers, might be worth checking everything is up to date.
Click to expand...

Indeed - check Device Manager and see if there's anything obviously fubar in there.

Might also be worth checking the system event logs to see if anything obvious is appearing in there as well.
 
It seems the disk error is on the external HDD so might not be related to this problem. I'll run chkdsk on it anyway and see what comes up.

This computer also has another problem which I know is hard drive related because it makes a clicking sound like it switched off, the CD load icon briefly appears and then this annoying stuttering starts. It causes the everything to stutter every second from the mouse to sound and just drives me crazy. This is an independent problem from the one I original described. I also have to restart to stop this also but it usually rears its head again.

I'm starting to think that it's just this computer as it's a PoS and the motherboard is a crummy, cheap Asrock with some horrible chipset. The HD came from another which didn't have these problems before. I guess I'll just have to put up with it until I can get my main PC repaired. :(

EDIT: Seems it was the CD and DVD drive causing the stuttering so I just pulled them and that seems to have cured that. That's one problem down...
 
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Indeed, I had an external drive in the process of failing that would cause severe system slowdown, unplugging and switching it off brought the system back to speed.

Oddly when investigated by lacie who manufactured the e-sata drive, they simply replaced the PSU brick, and now all works swimmingly. Had all the symptoms of a disk failure but was psu related.
 
I hope the external drive isn't failing. This problem never occurred on my last computer when I used the external drive before it failed. Saying that I have had it on more than usual lately. Its a Maxtor drive so not the most reliable but its been sound for the 2-3 years I've had it.
 
Well I know it's not the external HDD now because it happened again and I haven't even switched it on today. Playing a game and it turns into a slide show. Nothing in the event viewer either. Oh well...
 
I installed Core Temp but it says it doesn't support my processor so I have no way to get the temp. Last time I looked in the BIOS it was around 40-50c idle.
 
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