CPU Usage is at 100% from opening normal apps, system very laggy, AMD XP 2100+

[dxkj]

SLK 800 + tornado
AMD 2100+CPU @ stock
3x256MB PC2100 DDR Crucial
40GB Maxtor 7200rpm

2x80GB Maxtor 5400 RPM on a Ultra Promise Controller Card
48x Lite on CDRW



Whenever I start up windows or try to do anything at all, the system is completely laggy. Every once in a while it will go away for a bit, then come back. No viruses have come up, and Im not sure where to go from here, Ive tried everything I can think of.



Windows XP


Anyone come across something similar to this? My 750mhz duron system runs circles around this

 

[Knightlife]

What kind of free space do you have on your harddrives? Maybe it's out of swap space. Perhaps test the RAM and harddrives also...

Edit: Ah, you have 768MB of RAM? Might wanna just try completely turning off the Windows swap file. I know it sounds bad, but I have a gig of RAM on my other comp and Windows would only use 100MB and start paging to the HDD unless I just turned the swap off.

 

[dxkj]

like 20GB free on each of the 80's and 10gb free on the 40 (the one the Os is on)



also, folders like d:\movies or e:\music, etc tend to lock up and I have to end task on them and it restarts explorer completely. This happens all the time...

 

[Knightlife]

Run a harddrive testing application on those harddrives...that's all I can really think of if only certain directories lock up every time.

 

[lesch2k]

defragment needed?

look in task manager - is your cpu all used up?

i've had both issues when not suspected

 

[dxkj]

Programs lock up as well, but since they are accessing files...

Yes the CPU utilization goes to 100% when those things happen.

 

[Duvie]

Do you have a network card or some type of cable modem installed???

 

[mechBgon]

What motherboard? If it's nForce2, then re-run the nVidia driver pack but answer No to the SW IDE driver when the prompt comes up, and see what happens now. After doing that, you should see your IDE controllers listed in Device Manager as standard ide controllers, rather than falling into the SCSI category (long story, don't ask, just try it ).

 

[Gage8]

yeah, i would say make sure your drivers are updated. I installed one of the Nforce2 driver packs and it messed up my display drivers so i had to reinstall the drivers for my Gforce4