IE 6 & Netscape/CPU Usage

epa80

Junior Member
Oct 28, 2001
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Lately, at random times, IE 6 will cause my CPU usage to jump to 100% and thus slow down my machine considerably. Oddly enough, the only other program that does this is the Netscape 6 browser. Any other internet applicaiton I have (mIRC, AIM, Morpheus, etc.) does not cause the CPU usage to jump sky high, only IE and Netscape. Is there ay reason they would be doing this?

The only thing I have updated recently is the Microsoft IE security patch for 2/11/02. I also have disabled my McAfee Firewall and gone back to the stand WinXP Professional firewall, but, this did nothing to solve the problem.

Any help is appreciated.

-Ed
epa80@home.com
 

altonb1

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2002
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Do you have DSL? If so, did you recently get it?
DSL obtains it's IP address through the dial-up adapter. (PPP) The NIC is only used to transport the data from the DSL modem to the PC. Basically, your system is probably set to obbtain it's IP address automatically on the NIC TCP/IP setting. Becuase of this, the NIC sends out a broadcast trying to fill in those values. Since there is no DHCP server to assign the address to the NIC, those values remain empty and the NIC is not happy. It will continuously try to fill in those values at a set interval. (I think it's about 10 minutes. This only affects browsing, though. Not sure why, so don't ask. You can try filling in a safe IP address on the NIC. 192.168.1.10, with subnet mask 255.255.255.0 Run scandisk on your drive, then defrag it. This SHOULD correct the probhlem. Of course, if you don't have DSL, then the above info is moot, other than trying to defrag your drive.

Oh...and checks your cache settings for each browser. There really is no need for either browser to use more than 15MB for it's Temporary Internet Files (IE) or Disk Cache (Netscape).
 

epa80

Junior Member
Oct 28, 2001
20
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0
I actually have a Cable modem ISP. My IP is set to obtain automatically, would hardcoding it into the Network properties do any good with it not being DSL?

About the cache properties, how would I go about fixing that.

Thanks for the help.

-Ed
epa80@home.com
 

altonb1

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2002
6,432
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Not sure if cable has the same problem with searching for an IP or not. i don't think it does, but I'm really not sure. you could try it.
As for the cache, in IE, go to the pull-down menus and select Tools, Internet Options. In the middle of the screen, you will see a button for Settings under the Temporary Internet Files section. Click it, and then you will see a box next to a bar for amount of disk space to use. Clear the number out manually and type 15.

In Netscape, go to Edit, Preferences, Advanced. You should see an option for cache. Click on it, and change your <U>DISK </U>cache to 15000. (not quite 15MB, but close enough. 15MB=15*1024=15,360KB)

While you're there, you might as well clean out your disk cache & temporary internet files, so click on the Clear Disk cache button in Netscape after you apply the 15000. In IE, click on the Delete Files button next to the settings button.

And again, make sure you defrag your hard drive. If your drive is really fragmented, it could be causing a lot of your problems. If yiyur hard drive is extremely full, you could be having problems with Windows having problems utilizing your virtual memory (swap file). If that's the case, you should look to see if there are temporary files you can delete. I sometimes will do a search in Windows find for *.tmp *.bak *.tmp *.syd and then delete everything it finds. That's a quick way to gain space. (Sometimes A LOT of space)

Hope this helps!
 

epa80

Junior Member
Oct 28, 2001
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0
I tried the cache thing, no luck. I will go and try defragmenting sometime tonight.

One new thing I am seeing: Every first load of a webpage, it goes to 100% and sits for a second or 2, then drops and the page loads. This happens for every link I clcik and webpage I type in, whenever I go to it, it goes to 100, hangs, loads.

Killing me.

Thanks again.

-Ed
epa80@home.com
 

epa80

Junior Member
Oct 28, 2001
20
0
0
To maybe add something:

Whenever I look at Task manager, (and BTW: I did a reboot and everything is running smooth, no CPU usage problems at all. However, this is common, on bootups sometime's it's good, sometime's not. I got lucky this time, I'll see if it lasts.) I always notice that system Idle process is running in task manager, and under the CPU column, it ALWAYS has a high numeric value, while every other process is fairly low. Is this normal for that process? Like at this very second, it's stayed in the high 90's while I typed this message.

Dunno if this mattered, figured I'd throw it in.

-Ed
epa80@home.com
 

altonb1

Diamond Member
Feb 5, 2002
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:D Sorry, but I have to smile. A company where I used to work had some end users that would ask me about system idle process running at 9x% on their system all the time. They wanted to know if that was why they had other problems. The answer was basically a "No, your problems are because our apps suck..."

System Idle process is just what it says: system idle. In other words, it is showing how much free CPU power you have. If it shows really low, you are really using up your CPU power on another process. (Such as IE or Netscape eating up the power)

Have you had this problem since upgrading to these browserts, or did the browsers work fine before and just recently started having problems? You might want to go back to windows Update, View Installed up[dates, and uninstall the latest update.

If you do this and the problem stille xists, it may not be related to that security update.