100% cpu usage....?

Sherm

Sherm

Sherm

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Joined
4 Jun 2003
Posts
903
Location
UK, Dorset
Hiya guys, just noticed today after my gf went to play one of her games that the cpu usage was at 100%. After manageing to get the system 'unlocked up' the cpu is now irradically jumping from 0% to 25% to 40% and back to 0% when just browsing windows. It does idle sometimes at 0-2% though.

Right, this machine is a new build, only about 2 weeks old. yes i have installed all the stuff that i need, but i have never noticed this before (not that i sit and watch my cpu usage all the time)

Is this something that could be related to a virus or is it me just being paranoid? I have rolled back to the day before to see if it helps, but seems the same.

Any ideas on this ?

Just noticed that if i roll up and down with the mouse in this screen i can get my cpu usage upto 100%!!!!!!!!

The spec of the machine is in the sig :confused:
 
Just noticed that if i roll up and down with the mouse in this screen i can get my cpu usage upto 100%!!!!!!!!
Click to expand...
That's caused by having "smooth scrolling" enabled. It gobbles CPU time to render the smooth effect. Vista's new graphics model will fix that.

As for the other problem... load up Task Manager and look on the Processes tab for the process that is using all that CPU time (it's the column labelled "CPU"). Probably worth just watching that for a few minutes as you say it's sporadic.

PS: It's not uncommon for the CPU usage to spike in general when you are "using" Windows. That is to say, dragging windows around, refreshing views, navigating directories in Explorer. All of these things suck up massive amounts of CPU time. Most of it is caused by redrawing/rendering the screen for fancy colour gradients, font smoothing, and other such GUI niceties. Again, Vista's new graphics model will significantly reduce this.
 
Web surfing does tend to be a bit CPU happy...

System Idle Process is just used for displaying how much CPU time _is_ free. It isn't actually using that CPU time. (Actually that's not quite true ;) as anyone who knows Windows internals will know.)

Turn off Smooth Scrolling in IE->Options->Advanced and things should be a bit better.
 
To be honest i think its just me being paranoid...seeing what you guys have said and not having watched the usage to any degree before....

Think i might try killing it with some photoshop rendering, if its happy then its just me getting a scare when trsuy old windows had a benny on me :p

Thanks for your quick replies guys, will reply back here if my test goes **** up! :D
 
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