CPU idling at 40%

[Majik]

I have a core2duo E7200 2.53Ghz 3MB L2 Cache at 1066 Mhz FSB.

For some mystery my wireless internet connection stopped working and as a last resort i formatted my computer.

This is a fresh install of Windows XP SP2.

I have a grand total of 31 Processes running including Chrome.exe running 4 times for some strange reason despite only having it open once with two tabs :/

CPU usage is constantly between 40-50, i've no idea why. Looking at the list of processes in task manager there is no obvious stand out reason.

I currently have steam running, sygate firewall, asus pro wireless and google chrome. That's it.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks,

Jonny/Majik.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Any chance that Window is downloading update in the background without you knowing?

Also, overclock your CPU when you have time. That chip should be able to reach around 3.8GHz (given that you don't have a crap motherboard).

 

[Majik]

Motherboard is a ASUS P5K-E.

Nah there's nothing downloading. Very little running, ran hijackthis and everything came back clean "very safe" etc.

 

[Marine-RX179]

I have a grand total of 31 Processes running including Chrome.exe running 4 times for some strange reason despite only having it open once with two tabs :/

Try to close/end 3 of the 4 Chrome process, and see if that free up the CPU usage or if it has impact on your opened Chrome. If still not work, guess you have to look into the rest of the processes and check the ones that seem the use the most resource (CPU/Memory).

Oh, and that motherboard should overclock your CPU nicely I think.

 

[Pooh]

I had a similar problem once and I traced it to an IDE cable that wasn't properly seated into the dvd drive.

 

[eddiew]

Try getting a hold of Process Explorer from Sysinternals and have a look what that says.

Found problems in the past where mystery CPU usage turned out to be going into "hardware interrupts" which in turn proved to be the hard drive being on the way out O_o Or maybe as Pooh suggests above, might get the same symptom from a loosely fitted cable.