CPU usage at 100% and not moving

[ID]

I'm having a problem where my cpu usage hit's 100% and stays there. It dosen't seem to matter what program i'm running. My comp is a msi kt3 ultra, amd xp 1700, radeon 8500 128meg and SBlive value card running on XP. I have all the latest drivers installed, and use nortons and zonealarm. I've scanned for virus's but nothing. My comp is well cooled, cpu usually only hit's max of 45C, case around 41C. I'm at a loss as to what is causing this problem, but it sure is annoying, it seems to happen ever couple of hours and the only way to solve it is to hit the reset button. Any idea's would be appreciated! THanks

 

[ant80]

Go to the task manager and sort processes by cpu utilization. that should tell u which program is using up all of ur cpu.

 

[ID]

Yes i know that. What I am saying is I could be playing a game or doing a defrag and all of a sudden my cpu usage jumps to 100% and my comp acts like it's a 386. I know what program is using up the 100%, it's which ever program I'm running when it happens. I'm wondering why it gets to 100% and stays there, it won't drop any and even using the end task dosen't help as the comp just stays the same even after the program is shut down. And it shouldn't get to 100% in the first place.

 

[isaacmacdonald]

XP has that problem. Check taskman and I bet it's "explorer" that's consuming all the cpu resources. I'm not sure if it's specific to a few programs, but Direct Connect is definitely not XP friendly. To solve this problem just open up taskman and kill the explorer proccess. If you're just playing a game you can even just launch it from taskman, otherwise relaunch explorer and hope that it doesn't bug out again.

 

[ID]

Thanks, but explorer isn't the problem. I do however think it was zonealarm, it happened last night and just for the hell of it I turned off zonealarm and the cpu usage dropped back down to normal. Maybe the program got screwed up or something, but I've since reinstalled ZA and haven't experienced the problem as of yet tonight. Thanks for the help!

 

[opk]

I had the same problem ( on XP ) but for me it was SVCHOST.EXE. I'd be curious to know if yours is related.

 

[ID]

I have 4 svchost.exe running, which one caused your problem and what excatly does svchost do? I haven't had the problem since my reinstall of zonealarm, so I'm hoping thats the end of it.