50% - 100% CPU USAGE?!!

[imhungry]

When I play Counter Strike 1.6 I see 100% CPU usage resulting in FPS drops and spikes all over. When I do simple tasks like surfing and AIM etc, I see CPU spikes all over the place ranging from 0% to 25% to 50%.

Any idea what this could be? Bad GPU driver? Am I missing something here?
Bad ram? Time for another reformat?

This system's specs are...
Specs ---
Opteron 144 @ 2.7Ghz or 2.5Ghz (Happened with my 3500+ at STOCK too)
1 GB ram (2x PC2700 / 2x PC3700)
6600GT
Epox 9NPA+ Ultra
Ultra X-Connect 500W PSU

Could page file or virtual memory have anything to do with this?

 

[TankGuys]

I notice some spikes here and there as well, but if it's super frequent and causing lots of issues, that's a little weird. I'm not sure off the top of my head what could be causing that.

 

[palindrome]

Lol, virus?

 

[BrownTown]

well, running a game you should always see 100% CPU usage since its pretty much a loop which runs continuously until you exit the game. Also, its completely normal for a program to take 100% CPU usage for a second in order to load, or if you are doing some computations (like in Mathematica when you do a calculaion it might jump up to 100%). But if you keep getting 100% usage when nothing much is going on that is likely a problem. Also, look to see what program is using all the CPU time, if its something youve never heard of then its likely spyware.

 

[imhungry]

My Dell 2.8 Ghz single core runs CS 1.6 @ 30% CPU usage.
I didn't really check the usage of CS 1.6 until I started seeing FPS drops consistently, then I noticed the 100% CPU usage.
What I DO remember is seeing Webroot scanning at less than 60%, now it's consistently more than 50% and 100%.

Doubt it's spyware or a virus. I ran Spy Sweeper, Spybot, Ad-Aware, Anti-Vir, E-Wido. many many things.

 

[robertk2012]

does it do it on a reguar basis ie do you have spikes even when you are not doing anything?

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: imhungry
My Dell 2.8 Ghz single core runs CS 1.6 @ 30% CPU usage.

I doubt that, did you figure that out by tabbing to desktop and looking at taskmanager while the game was minimized? Or did you run perfmon and looked at the logs?

Games, while actually playing, always suck up all the resources they can get, especially CPU resources. The video card still needs to be fed with data, as well as all the calculations that are not done by the video card = 100%. On a single core machine that is. Dual core machines may or may not utilize the second core to some extend.

 

[TrevorRC]

Give priority to the game... set priority to "Above Normal" or higher, (just not real time!); the spikes should disappear.

 

[One43637]

Originally posted by: BrownTown
well, running a game you should always see 100% CPU usage since its pretty much a loop which runs continuously until you exit the game. Also, its completely normal for a program to take 100% CPU usage for a second in order to load, or if you are doing some computations (like in Mathematica when you do a calculaion it might jump up to 100%). But if you keep getting 100% usage when nothing much is going on that is likely a problem. Also, look to see what program is using all the CPU time, if its something youve never heard of then its likely spyware.

not entirely true. my cpu usually runs between 30-70% depending on what i'm doing ingame. the only reason my cpu goes up to 100% usage is if i'm folding at the same time i'm gaming.

 

[BrownTown]

i'm not sure how your measuring CPU usage, but every game I've ever played used 100% CPU usage when the game was actually running (like in a game with the 3D rendering going).

 

[imhungry]

I keep the CPU Monitor lapped over the game window, so I can see what's going on.
CS 1.6 doesn't allow giving priority to it, unfortunately.

 

[furballi]

Firefox can pull a lot of CPU load, but only for about 5 seconds. Bookmark about a dozen graphic intensive websites under a SINGLE folder. Now use OPEN IN TABS to open all the websites at the same time. You will see the CPU load hits 100% for several seconds. Again, that's normal with the Fox.

 

[Mogadon]

Originally posted by: imhungry
Opteron 144 @ 2.7Ghz or 2.5Ghz (Happened with my 3500+ at STOCK too)

I don't understand this statement.

Do you have Cool n Quiet turned on?

 

[couppi]

Do you have google toolbar? It does various dc projects while it's open. That's why google is the biggest fah team.

 

[imhungry]

Originally posted by: Mogadon

Originally posted by: imhungry
Opteron 144 @ 2.7Ghz or 2.5Ghz (Happened with my 3500+ at STOCK too)

I don't understand this statement.

Do you have Cool n Quiet turned on?

I meant it happens at stock, 2.5ghz, and 2.7ghz.
I do have google toolbar, but even when virus / spyware scanning I see abnormal CPU usage.

Oh well, until I see some bad stuff happen, I'll just live with it until the next reformat.