Vista at 100% cpu usage, but NO process is causing it

[TheRealMrGrey]

[Note: having used XP up until now, I have very little vista knowledge.]

I have a Dell inspiron 1420 running Vista that often and randomly goes to 100% cpu for ~30-120 seconds. If you open task manager and look at what process is doing this, it shows that only a few processes are using the cpu, none above 10%, and not enough to add up to 100%.

I've done google searches on this but have come up with nothing. It is very odd. It is not a RAM issue, the Dell has 3 GB but is only using 1.4 GB. (Is 1.4 GB a typical usage in Vista?)

Is there a program that can log very specific processor usage that has more info than task manager?

Internet Explorer also runs very slow on this computer, taking about 10-20 seconds to load any new window. One problem is that it says "Telstra Big-Pond Internet Explorer" at the top of every IE window. Big-Pond is a wireless internet service run by Telstra, which is the major phone/internet provider in Australia. I temporarily needed wireless service through this company while in Australia, and had to install their software. I have since uninstalled it, but the slowness issue more or less started around the same time as I installed this software.

I have done the following things, which have not helped:

- Defragged
- Scanned for viruses
- Scanned for malware using adaware
- Gone through every startup process and disable all that I believe are unnecessary
- Gone through every non-windows service and disabled all that are unnecessary

I have also searched the registry for "telstra" and "big-pond" and have found a few entries left over that were not uninstalled. Is it a good idea to simply delete these entries, or should I use some kind of *freeware* to search for remnants of not-fully uninstalled programs?

Any tips are appreciated, thanks.

 

[Bill Brasky]

Use process explorer. Space bar will pause the updating, and you can view open threads and .dll's.

Process Explorer

Some possibilities are:

-something is wrong with cpu cooling causing temps to rise, and cpu throttles (slows down) to prevent overheating. Clogged heatsink, bad thermal paste.

-you might have a driver conflict/ issue causing DPC's to consume your cpu cycles. Pray this isn't your problem. However, you'll be able to identify this in a flash with that app.

 

[JackMDS]

Process Explorer is a good step especially if you look at its options and configure it to the relevant columns.

Also Download this free Util. and run it.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx

It would show the Internet, and network activities through the TCP/IP stack.

If there is no strong Network related activities when the surge then it is probably any of the local OS activities, like Indexing etc.

 

[TheRealMrGrey]

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll try these things.

Edit: [I have process explorer, but didn't know I could pause, thanks.] - No I was wrong, I have System Explorer. Process Explorer looks to be better. Thanks.

Also, I just installed firefox on the Vista Dell and it is just as fast as on my XP computer. So the slowness issue with IE is IE itself, not the network connection, etc.