help! weird problem, CPU Usage at 100%.. look inside for update

[tigerbait]

I just recently built a machine for a friend.

P4 1.6a @ 2.133 @133FSB (35 degress C)
Asus P4S333
256 pc2100
Maxtor 30GB 7200rpm
Antec SX830
Pixelview GeForce3
Windows XP

I am using the 29.42 nvidia drivers, and the card is not overclocked. I am encountering a problem in games. The games play fine for a while, then after 10,15,20 minutes, it gets real slow ,like 1 frame every 10 seconds. When this happens, but you can't really do anything. You can't press [ESC] to go to the menu, and you can't CTRL-ALT-DEL, but it isn't a lockup, it still moves, just very slow.

This occurs in Jedi Knight 2, GTA3, and Warcraft III.

Any clues?


update: i found that the problem occurs when the process called "System" (not "System Idle Process") gets locked in at 99% CPU Usage. How can I find out what the problem is?

it seems that all functions still work, they just take forever. If I am in a game and hit escape, then after about 5-10 minutes, the game finally went to the menu.

 

[Lint21]

Wierd. What's running in the background? Do you have all the background XP stuff turned off (system restore, automatic updates)? Any virus scanners going, or other stuff loading at startup?

 

[tigerbait]

nope, nothing else is going on

I did install the update patch here that is supposed to fix the problem with nvidia cards and GTA3. Unfortunately, that was the first game I tried, so I was not able to do a comparison to see if that DX8 patch caused problems.

I just did 3dmark2001se, and when it goes through its tests, by the 8th test of out 17, it started skipping, but not like in games as described above. It was fast...like normal movement for 3 seconds, then a hiccup, then normal movement, then a slight hiccup again. The test finished in normal time, and the score was a respectable 6900.

I'm sure that hiccup seen in 3dmark is related to the problem with games. I guess 3dmark just accelerates it.

 

[tigerbait]

*update*..maybe not a video problem at all

i just had a problem while at the desktop... it started to go really slow... I managed to pull up task manager

"System" was using 99% CPU
it wouldnt go down... i could still do other stuff, but it seemed to take forever, as if it were only able to use .1% CPU

rundll32.exe was using 15 MB memory, not sure why that was running..usually doesnt show up


this is the task manager right now

i wanted to get a screencap of the processes when it was acting up, but i couldnt get paint open


any clues?

 

[Floydian]

System idle proccesses are sometimes seti@home or rc5 etc... since they use the "leftover" cpu cycles

Anything like that installeD?'

 

[tigerbait]

Originally posted by: Floydian
System idle proccesses are sometimes seti@home or rc5 etc... since they use the "leftover" cpu cycles

Anything like that installeD?'

nope

it seems to be working ok now (web browsing for about an hour without problem) , but i havent tried the games

 

[tigerbait]

bump for help

 

[GAZZA]

Sounds like one of your services is taking over the whole system and one that I can think of that would cause this would be "System Restore" .

If you have yours turned on then you might want to try shutting it down and then test your pc out to see if it occurs again , if it doesn't then it's a very good possibility you cured the problem .

 

[tigerbait]

I gave up last night after it kept doing the same thing. After a while, the CPU gets used like crazy.

I'm gonna try to head back over to my friend's house and check to see if system restore is running. Would system restore show up as a process called "System" or would it have its own name?


Here's something I've been thinking about. He had the Windows CD he wanted to install with the computer, and I'm pretty sure it was a corporate install with the FCKGW key. Do you think this update which is supposed to be part of the SP1 release could have messed up the OS on purpose? I've never really messed with XP before so I have no clue.

I'm thinking about wiping the hard drive and starting over with a clean install of Windows 2000. If there is a still a problem, then I'm sure it would have to be hardware causing the problem. If not, then I can assume something got screwed up with the WinXP.

Is it possible that it is just a driver issue?

 

[RemyCanad]

Can you go to your services list and take a screen shot (migth need multiple screen shots) of it. And then post it here.

Also I would download distributed and run it and watch the task manager. Also try and set the process importance for distributed to high and see if it does anything.

Also if you run it in safe mode does it happen?

Also might wann try to restore to known good profile.

 

[GAZZA]

Yes in your services under Administrative tools it is listed as "System Restore Sevice"
For a complete list of all the services that run in XP go and take a look at this excellant guide explaining what they mean and if your able to turn them off ,

Windows XP Services Tweak Guide

 

[tigerbait]

I couldn't get a screenshot from when it freaks out... might have to try taking a picture of the screen with a digicam or something

this is the process that maxes out... everything else remains the same like shown in this normal task manager, but the System process is using 99


I will check out the services when I go back over there... thanks for all the replies so far

 

[tigerbait]

hmmmm


I went over to my friend's house and tried some more stuff. I tried a system restore back to a few days ago, but the problem remained. At this point, I lost hope and told him I was taking the machine home with me and I was going to reload it with 2000. Well, I have it at my house, and it is working fine. no problems at all, after about an hour of game playing. At his house, while playing jedi knight 2, the cpu error would come up after no more than 10 minutes. I played for 30 without a problem, and I played warcraft iii for a while also.

the difference between the computer at his house and at my house?

1. AC power source: although if this were a problem, I'm sure it would cause a hard lockup, not a cpu usage problem... or am I wrong?

2. No peripherals: I have nothing plugged in except keyboard,mouse, monitor, network, speakers. No USB devices, no printer. The installed USB devices were a IBM PC Camera and a Handspring Visor Pro and a Lexmark Z52 was connected to the printer port. My guess is that one of these is causing the problem.

Where do I go from here?

 

[GAZZA]

OK sounds like you have not jsut services running in the background but also some applications , check what programs are loading up at startup , use something like StartCop and disable anything related to the printer ,camera and the visor pro .

 

[RemyCanad]

Wouldn't msconfig do the same things a start cop?

Anyway just add one perifrial at a time or by them self. Add the printer see what happens take off the printer try something else....

 

[GAZZA]

Originally posted by: RemyCanad
Wouldn't msconfig do the same things a start cop?

Yes but I have seen certain apps that wouldn't be controlled by Msconfig yet StartCop was able to disable them .

 

[tigerbait]

Anyway just add one perifrial at a time or by them self. Add the printer see what happens take off the printer try something else....

yep, this is what I'm going to try when I bring the machine back. There are no applications loading up, but there may be an issue with the drivers for one of the devices.

 

[RemyCanad]

Originally posted by: GAZZA

Originally posted by: RemyCanad
Wouldn't msconfig do the same things a start cop?

Yes but I have seen certain apps that wouldn't be controlled by Msconfig yet StartCop was able to disable them .

Hmm I might just have to download that and put it in my software archive.
Do you have anyother software that is handy like this?

 

[JacobS]

I am having a similar problem on an XP1800 using a Soyo Dragon+ motherboard. The system was upgraded from Win 98Se and had been running well for several months.

What happens now is that for a period of several minutes (5 to 10), the system becomes extremely unresponsive. Using Taskmanager, CPU utilization bounces around, often hitting 80% to 100% even when I have few if any applications. While this is happening, there are no clearly identifiable processes that are hogging the CPU (the system idle process is using 90%+ of the CPU.

I have shut off most of my startups using msconfig. This is a tough one. Sometime a seemingly trivial screen interaction will start it off. For example while using Norton Speed Disk on a data partition (not boot or system), just scrolling the color legend started a long period of unresponsiveness.

Something is hogging the CPU and long periods of observing CPU utilization reveals no runaway processes.

I will keep debugging and monitoring this thread.

Jacob

 

[bolsen]

What about ACPI problems.

When I install Win2k, I have to choose a non-ACPI board because of hardware issues.

Another thing is I would reinstall the OS, if it comes to that, and install driver by driver... and wait and see.

 

[RemyCanad]

I wish I could recreat this problem. Maby Jacob and tigerbait should list the programs they have installed. And lets see what they have in common.

 

[tk149]

Could a virus be causing your slowdown?

Just for the record, I have a Athlon 1800+ and a Soyo Dragon Plus and have never experienced this. BTW, you never mentioned that you were using updated sound drivers.

 

[JacobS]

I gave up and restored from a recent Ghost backup. I pray that whatever haunted my machine stays away.

All drivers were the most recent available from Soyo as of a week ago.

Jacob