y is MCE using alot of CPU?

[DaRock42]

is there something wrong with my installation or is it the way it is?? When I use the MCE program to watch TV or listen to the radio, it uses up 50% of the CPU and lags my computer!! I can't surf the net easily while having MCE on.

does anyone know what the problem might be or is it just how it is???

FYI: I got a Gig of ram and running a 1.6 Ghz athlon.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: DaRock42
is there something wrong with my installation or is it the way it is?? When I use the MCE program to watch TV or listen to the radio, it uses up 50% of the CPU and lags my computer!! I can't surf the net easily while having MCE on.

does anyone know what the problem might be or is it just how it is???

FYI: I got a Gig of ram and running a 1.6 Ghz athlon.

I've MCE2005 with 1G and 2.16Ghz AMD (XP3000+) - no issues.

What video card do you have?

 

[DaRock42]

a new one...XFX Gforce 5500 256mb

when you watch TV or listen to radio w/ MCE or jus use MCE in general, wats the CPU usage??

 

[dclive]

If I'm recording, nearly nothing. If I'm watching, it's 30-40%, give or take.

The video card is fine - I have a 64MB Geforce 5200 AGP with the SE-bus (64-bit, IIRC) and it works great.

 

[DaRock42]

but my CPU is at least 50%, avg of 60...n when i click on a link to surf the net, BOOM, 100%!!

 

[stlcardinals]

It's more important to ask what kind of TV tuner card you have. If you have a card that actually uses the cpu for encoding/decoding, then you will see the cpu being utilized alot.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: stlcardinals
It's more important to ask what kind of TV tuner card you have. If you have a card that actually uses the cpu for encoding/decoding, then you will see the cpu being utilized alot.

True, but per MS MCE 2005 guidelines, it must be an MPEG2-encoding card. And if he's just watching, rather than recording, the CPU overhead shouldn't be too bad. Furthermore, he said it happens when just listening to the radio, which wouldn't compress anything.

It's odd that opening MSIE uses 50% of the cpu resources.

Is this a hyperthreaded machine? Tell us a bit about the machine, including hardware in it, CPU, etc.
Can you reproduce this problem with all software, or just MCE2005 and MSIE?

 

[Wik]

Well he said it was a 1.6 Ghz athlon. I imagine that CPU is on the bottom edge of the ideal processor for MCE. It is a resource hungry application.

 

[mezrah]

Originally posted by: Wik
Well he said it was a 1.6 Ghz athlon. I imagine that CPU is on the bottom edge of the ideal processor for MCE. It is a resource hungry application.

agreed.

 

[dclive]

Oops - yep, 1.6; I should have remembered that.

I ran MCE2004 for quite some time on an AMD 1.8 with hmm.... Geforce 440MX (IIRC) graphics and 512M; it worked fine.

I can't believe the AMD 1.6 would have issues, so I'm curious about what else happens with the system.

Which version of MCE is this? The original, 2004, or 2005?

 

[DaRock42]

Athlon 2000 1.64 Ghz
1 GB of RAM (believe its PC2700)
XFX GForceFX 5500 256 MB
Hauppage 150MCE TV Tuner
MCE 2005

this system is running on 3 yrs for me but I am happy with it...til recently with this CPU usage problem. I strongly believe its crazy for a computer to lag and be using 100% when only using MCE to watch MOnday night Football, Opera to surf the web (with only 5 pages open n only one of them is being actively used), and AIM.

i gotta agree with dclive, i can't believe the CPU is having issues. Before I turned to MCE n the current tv card and video card, I had the ATI AIW 9600 and ran the ATI TV program and other regular progs and didnt have any problems at all for 2 yrs til my ATI card died last week. It would be at about 20%, 30 - 40% when I'm burning a dvd, playing my gamecube, downloadin, n surfin net, AIM.

also something to consider, my friend suggested I might have a wrong decoder working with MCE or MCE chose a different one from the one I installed. Gonna have to check that out when I get home. I installed Cyberlink DVD decoder and I think its using it, but now I'm not sure.

 

[Raduque]

My HTPC has an Athlon XP 1.83ghz (barton), 512mb DDR333, GeForce fx5200 PCI, and used to have a hauppage PVR150 (it died). I use the nVidia DVD codec, and my CPU usage was always very low when using MCE. That might be your problem; try the nV DVD trial and see if that help.