"System" process spikes CPU Usage every 3-4 mins

[shivohum]

Hi. My Windows XP system is spiking in CPU usage every few minutes. I looked carefully and found that the "System" process was the spiker, but I'm not sure of the solution. I notice others have had this problem, but I see no solution:

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=850052&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=arc
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=1010346&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=arc
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=1161349&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=arc
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=765274&FTVAR_MSGDBTABLE=arc

It's quite irritating because it distorts any video or audio I'm listening to and slows down mouse movement. It's doubly annoying because when the "System" process wants to bother you, I don't think Windows XP cares how high you set the priority of any other important processes -- it just interrupts them.

I'm on an IBM Thinkpad T23 laptop, 1 Ghz processor, S3 Supersavage video card.

This problem only started occurring a week or so ago. I can't think of any big change I did around that time. I've uninstalled a program or two, but I recall the problem being there before the uninstalls, I think. I've also installed new Microsoft patches, but again, I'm a little unsure of the timing.

I've run an anti-virus check, by the way. No dice. I've tried turning off various processes, including Norton's live anti-virus checker. That's no help either.

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

if you don't have a registry checking software, the only thing I can think of is to save your data, and re-install windows from scratch.

 

[shivohum]

What is registry-checking software?

 

[lobadobadingdong]

software like norton's windoctor, that searces the registry for missing links, bad or missing dll's, invalid activex entry's etc. there others that do the same thing, but I trust symantec more that most.