Ok first off ... sorry didn't know what topic this should go under .... but yea .... my CPU usage is always at 100% .... and running very sluggish ... there is nothing running really .... msn messenger ... and Avira virus .... and thats about it ....

Intel P3 501 MHz 512 RAM

XP SP2

Any advice ....
TIA Matt

open task manager click the processes tab and that will show you what is eating all your CPU power.

it says .... System Idle process

Matt N BJ Deshane said:

thats odd... there isn't mulitple instances of "System Idle process" is there? if so the one eating CPU cycles is probably malware.

You may not like this answer, but a lot of things can cause this problem, and lot of posts have dealt with similar threads. You might use the upper right HWA search box and look up
[100% cpu]

The "usual suspects" include (not in any specific order):
viruses
spyware
zombie-ware (can be designed to be untraceable)
drivers (intentional or auto-updates you didn't notice)
program updates (intentional or auto-updates you didn't notice)
java run-time changes/updates
a new program added to the load at "start-up" list
registry management
disk management
memory management

You can use various system monitoring tools to get a handle in some cases. Programs like diskmon, filemon, procmon, regmon, etc. Programs like ProcessExplorer, WhatsRunning, and others can show details and relationships between processes that you don't see in TaskManager. (see sysinternals section of microsoft.com, majorgeeks, etc for sources)

and more. And, each category typically has multiple possible items to investigate.

Matt N BJ Deshane said:
You got to be kidding me Pentium III? In this day and age? Just running XP SP2 is already too much for PIII of that spec. Not to mention some Anti-virus software are extremely resource hungry. No wonder 100% CPU usage. Upgrade your machine!

Well Dr Peaceful,may I suggest you give him about a $1000 to upgrade his PC!

[/quote]
You got to be kidding me Pentium III? In this day and age? Just running XP SP2 is already too much for PIII of that spec. Not to mention some Anti-virus software are extremely resource hungry. No wonder 100% CPU usage. Upgrade your machine!
[/quote]

K well do you have money for me to do this .... cause i dont ... so i'm running a P3 ... if you dont have helpfull advice you should stay out of this thread thank you ...

But anywho .. no there isn't multiple usage on it .. only one ... and the virus isn't using more the 3 % ... and it seems if i reboot ... it runs at 52 % for about 15 mins .. then kicks up to 99 - 100 ....

Matt N BJ Deshane said:
Actually, his advice is valid. P3 at 500MHz 512MB RAM is woefully underpowered for anything but a super-stripped-down XP environment, especially when you're running active or background Anti-Virus scanning. While the way he shared his advice wasn't the most diplomatic I think your reaction was over the top.

An AV program itself may show that it is consuming only 3%, but the processes required to support the main AV program and its child processes, may consume much more than that...and in TaskManager they won't register under the Anti-virus program name and won't increase the 3% number.

When I gave my earlier advice, I gave the benefit of a doubt and assumed this symptom just started...that your computer used to run better, and then all of a sudden things went ker-flooey.

You may indeed find that your only choice is to eliminate some functionality or to change the programs you use. For example, instead of AV program X, try AV program Y and see if that helps. And, try stopping certain programs, changing run-time priorities, etc.one at a time and assess any change in system operations.

Disable all services you don't need. For example, stop the live-update service. If you don't use a service, turn it off.

A program may surprise you. For example, I recently updated Maxtor's MaxBlast disk manager program from Ver4 to Ver5. Without warning/notification, it installed at least 6 NEW background services that are not needed at all until I actually use MaxBlast5...and that typically occurs only when I want to change my system disk...as you might think, that's not very often. As a result, those constantly running processes are consuming resources even when I haven't started MaxBlast. MaxBlast4 didn't do that. If I didn't monitor my system, I would have never noticed this unwarranted "theft" of resources.

However, be careful when stopping/disabling services and processes, as you are changing fundamentals of the system operating environment. There are quite a few people who have submitted threads on "optimizing" their WinXP environment. You might search for those kinds of threads as well.

On one of my systems, I totally disabled the CISVC.EXE "indexing" service. The reason I did that is that it is known that this service occassionally takes a lot of %CPU USAGE time, and has potential to enter 100% CPU USAGE loop. I did this instead of going thru each disk's options, I went to administrative services panel, stopped, and disabled the service per instructions found at http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=296608&SiteID=2


And of course, with a system that slow, you need to turn-off/disable ALL Windows "background" special effects...things like "show contents while dragging menus and windows", window shadows, mouse tails, and so on. ANYTHING that takes extra background processing power.

If you're using integrated graphics, you may find system speed reduced as graphics operations are performed. Try reducing screen resolution, number of colors, etc....again, one at a time, and assess the impact (if any).

With such limited RAM, your memory management is frankly going to suck, and it will impact performance. Processes will have to wait as memory operations are tasked and completed.

That's why you need to use the monitoring programs and find out in detail who is doing what and when.



edit to add-
information on disabling un-needed services, especially the indexing service.

Bill Gates said:
Mr. Gates... you got Billions of dollars yourself, why don't you give him $1000, which is just pennies to you!

Matt, I was being playful, so please don't be upset. PCs these days are inexpensive, you can easily get one doubles the performance of yours for a low cost. But, but, if upgrade is not an option to you, you can try what John said above. To gain performance for your machine, you really have to conserve every bit of resources you have, by reducing the amount of startups, processes, services, and software / OS features. Perhaps increase the pagefile size, free up hard drive space, and clean up registry will help, too. Or even a clean install of your OS and software, but of course that will need backup, time and effort. You should also pick a light weight virus / spyware scanner software that won't tie down your performance.

Matt N BJ Deshane said:

Hi,
Are you saying that "System idle process" is shown as the highest amount of CPU usage?

If so your in good shape. System idle process is the % of the CPU that is 'NOT' being used.

Darrell

Bro,

Your best off Honsetly upgrading your machine, a good place to look for an upgrade for a good around $200 bucks would be newegg.com

look at getting a Dual Core CPU of your chose Should run you around $40-60 bucks at least 2GB or DDR2 RAM $32 bucks, if you would like a new Hard Drive 160GB are going for $45. and a nice MoBo for (i'd recommend ASUS/MSI/Gigibyte) for around $40-60 bucks. you can probable ur old CD or DVD drive for now. Also throw in a new case for $ 32 bucks comes with a power supply 400watt should do u substantial justice.

SombaSan said:
I have to recommend against using any generic or lame-brand PSU that comes with most cases. They are often a POS and a high risk to the electronics in the computer.

Matt,
This may have been buried within previous post, but you should turn off the windows indexing service. This causes a lot of CPU usage, with very little gain, unless you have a gajillion documents that are updated often.
Secondly, make sure when you start Task Manager, that you've selected "Show Processes for All Users", if you don't system processes will not show up in the list.
By default, Task Manager opens with a alphabeticly sorted list, click the heading on the CPU collumn in order to auto-sort the CPU usage to the top of the list.
If you are running systems management suites such as Symantec SystemWorks, or others, the overhead for "increasing" your system efficiency may be using so many resources that it is having the opposite effect.
Additionally, in Task Manager, click the Performance Tag. Check to make sure that your Physical Memory has Free resources, if it does not then you do have to invest at least a little in some additional DRAM.
Just a few suggestions; let me know how it works out.

Gerritt

Gerritt said:
Yup, up above at: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/71021/#531641
Indexing Service Disabling Instructions here:
http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsOneCare/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=296608&SiteID=2

By the way, a nice program for the typical computer user that provides comprehensive control of things like Indexing Service is freeware XPsyspad. Really easy to use.
http://www.xtort.net/index.php
http://www.xtort.net/xtort-software/xpsyspad/

Using XPsyspad, the path to Index Services is:
system>computer management>windows services panel>indexing service>properties

100% CPU usage all the time? Sounds to me you have a spyware on your PC. This happend to me until I used SpyBOT Search & Destroy which removed it.