Second core of my CPU running wild

[Elementalist]

I realise it's a vague symptom, but would anyone know what it might mean? The second core (when looking at task manager) is constantly running at around 85 to 95% usage all of a sudden.

No processes show up in the list as using CPU (not that amount anyway), but the second core usage is always high and the system sure is intermittently slow -internet especially (pages that I know are fine - my second PC on the same network gets them ok - are refusing to appear).

No viruses or firewall intrusions reported by McAfee (though I didn't install it until after I noticed the issue). Is may PC a Russion mafia zombie? heh

Any ideas on where to start looking? What diagnostics tools might help?

Thanks folks!

 

[Elementalist]

I can't tell what is using the CPU (no processes show up as using CPU time)

As for the processor - my setup =

Case: Thermaltake Aluminium Silver Tsunami Window (No PSU)
Cabling: Standard Cable Management
Cooling: Premium Cooling System (2-4 Fans with digital controller)
PSU: Seasonic S12 Silent 600w PSU
Motherboard: Asus A8R32-MVP Deluxe Xpress 3200 Crossfire (skt 939)
CPU: AMD X2 4400 SKT 939 Retail (2.2GHz 2x1Mb)
CPU Cooling: Scythe Ninja Heatpipe Cooler (all CPUs)
Memory: Corsair 1024Mb XMS LLPRO DDR433 CL2 Non ECC (x2)
Hard Drive: 74Gb Raptor 10000 8mb E-SATA (x2)
Storage HD: 400Gb Maxtor DiamondMax 11 7200 16mb SATA II ROHS
MasterGraphics: ATI X1800XT Crossfire Mastercard 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO
Graphics2: Sapphire ATI X1800XT 512MB GDDR3 AVIVO
Optical Drive: NEC 4550A 16x dual layer DVDRW Silver
Optical Drive 2: NEC 4550A 16x dual layer DVDRW Silver
Sound Card: Creative 7.1 X-FI Fatal1ty FPS
Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2 OEM
Overclocking: Standard Overclocking (3-20% - CPU/Memory)

 

[Elementalist]

Thanks for that advice - I'll check that out tonight. I wouldn't be surprised if it were a hardware/driver thing given I'm suddenly having problems with Crossfire and Networking also.

Unfortunately, I only know enough about PCs to get into trouble, not out

I know more than most of the public, though - how the heck do people manage?! Mind you, I guess most folks don't buy bleeding-edge tech...

 

[Elementalist]

Oh and I did install the AMD drivers a while back to stop a problem with mis-synchronisations making Everquest 2 go mad. The drivers resolved that problem - are they perhaps causing this one, though?