Weird CPU usage spikes ever second

[Pastore]

Every few times the task manager refreshes the CPU spikes from like 5% all the way up to about 50%, then back again. I've ran adaware, spybot, etc. and know nothing is running in the background. Any ideas what the problem could be?

 

[moretoys]

Open task manager, select processes tab, sort by cpu utilization (click on CPU column title) and watch it. You can likely pick up on the process that way.

 

[Pastore]

heh, I'm blind, been looking at Task Manager for an hour and didn't notice this. System Idle Process is hanging at 90 CPU. Why the heck would this be so high?

 

[bjc112]

System Idle Process is always that high

It's something else.

 

[Pastore]

Originally posted by: bjc112
System Idle Process is always that high

It's something else.

... ok.... So what else could I check?

 

[moretoys]

System Idle is actually the free cpu time. It could be your virus scanning software, but I would have thought you would have seen it bounce up near the top (or bottom depending on how you sorted) of your list when sorted by cpu utilization.

 

[moretoys]

You could start killing off non essential processes started by your login and see if the spiking stops with one of them.

 

[Pastore]

Nothing goes above 2 or 3 other than the idle process. And all other processes are ones that I know. I'm confused.

 

[moretoys]

Where are you seeing the 50%?

 

[Lalakai]

out of curiosity, do you defrag?? Reason for question: if you have something running in background, it will often cause defrag to restart and after 10 restarts, will stop. Good indicator that you have something that keeps cycling through your system. Reboot in safe mode and i'll bet you won't see the cpu spike; then it's just a matter of tracking down the program and restricting it. good luck

 

[moretoys]

One more thought, check your event viewer logs, especially the applications one for warnings or errors happening frequently. If your not familiar with this, it is in control panel, administrative tools, computer management.

 

[Greenman]

If you have indexing turned on that would do it.