strange problem with new laptop...CPU goes to 100%

[hdeck]

I just got a new Dell Inspirion 4150 and had it set up and working great this week. But today I've been noticing that I'll be doing something (usually just typing or scrolling in a window) and my CPU usage will shoot to 100%. everything I do stops and stutters for a few seconds. In fact it is doing it right now...ugh. I don't have many programs running, and the CPU is usually at 2-5% for what I do on the laptop but every minute or so it will shoot up high again. Specs are as follows...

P4 1.8 GHz
384 DDR Ram
30 GB HDD
ATi Radeon 7500 16 MB video

any help would be great.

 

[John]

Run MSCONFIG and disable all of the startup items, and all non-Microsoft services.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Can you identify what process (check task manager) is using the CPU?

 

[bacillus]

also try disabling the indexing service!

 

[prosaic]

I think you should do what Spicedaddy suggests and find out what is pegging the CPU. Don't just turn of all the startup items. That's not a good suggestions. You may need quite a few of those.

Also, though the Windows XP index service can cause disk thrashing, and even considerable CPU use, I've only seen it run when the user interface has been inactive for a while. It should relinquish control of the system instantly when user input (or any process requiring CPU cycles) occurs, though I'm sure it doesn't on some systems. But it does behave itself on the systems on which I use it. I've never had it cause any slowness of response to keyboard or mouse input, even on the old PIII 500 MHz notebook. Index service isn't turned on by default, but the unwary can turn it on by accident if they answer yes to the Search Assistant's question about optimizing searches. Now the old FastFind indexing service that comes with older version of Office is another kettle of fish altogether.

I'd suggest cranking up Task Manager and leaving it up so that you can check out the Processes tab to see which process is doing this. Also, time the interval between bouts of this behavior. Its periodicity may help out in the diagnosis.

And you might check the Event Viewer to see if any unusual errors show up in the Application or System logs.

- prosaic

 

[hdeck]

well i haven't turned on any indexing service since i haven't even done a search yet on the laptop. i'll look around and see what is running, but it doesn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary.