Playing Videos & Emulation causing 100% CPU

Firstly, I just want to say that before posting this problem I have tried everything I can think of to resolve it. About a week ago this problem started, before then everything was fine. Heres the spec of my PC..

Windows XP Pro SP2
P4 3Ghz, 512MB Ram
Gfx Card: MSI MX 4000 (NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000)
Sound Card: Soundblaster Audigy Value
C: = 80Gb HD
D: = DVD-RW/DC-RW
E: = DVD/CD-RW
F: = 200Gb HD

Please let me know if you need any more details.

Problem: If I play any HD movies or the live I get really choppy video & sound and the task manager shows that Media Player classic is at 100% CPU. I have tried with various other players and get the same results. Also if I run any kind of emulation like MAME for example, games are running slow and again I'm getting 100% CPU in the task manager. 2 weeks ago I didn't have these problems at all. Both would run very smoothly and the CPU would stay low.

Solutions I've tried: I've uninstalled all codecs and reinstalled new ones, tried rolling back to previous ones, I've tried uninstalling the latest updates (MS updates) as I'm fully upto date with those, Updated the drivers for everything I can think of including the Gfx card, Sound card etc and also tried rolling back to previous drivers. I've defragged both Hard Drives. I'm 100% spyware/adware free as far as I know (according to Adaware/spybot & Counterspy), I'm running AntiVIR which is fully uptodate with definitions and scanning shows no viruses at all.

I really don't know what else to do. Reading in forums and everything leads to the same answer which is my PC isn't powerful enough to run these things and thats why i'm getting 100% CPU on applications that need a lot of power. I would agree with this except that a few weeks ago, the same movies/games i'm having problems with now were working perfectly.

Thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to help me resolve this problem. Its driving me crazy!

Oh, one last thing, Before, when I was using nero to encode videos to burn onto DVDs... (i've been transfering my VHS collection to DVD) a 2 hour movie would encode in an hour or so but now its taking about 6 hours and again, CPU usase is up high in the 90% range.

Thank you.

Paul.

 

UPDATE: I have now tried running a memory checker (From this site) and all seems ok there, I also forgot to say that I have Registry Mechanic and all is well there too (and optimized).

One other thing I have noticed on the task manager, whenever I run anything, the CPU at the bottom isn't that high (Unless under the conditions stated above) BUT 'System Idle Process' is always at 99% even when the bottom CPU Usage is very low... ????

Please someone help if you can.

Thanks,

Paul.

 

Here is a picture showing the task manager and what it's doing.... hope this might help.....

Thanks.

Paul

 

System idle process is normal to be at 99 it's when your computer do nothing...

 

Oh, ok. Well, I guess I'm back to square one then as I'm still maxing out at 100% CPU when I run the above things.... Any ideas?

Thanks....

Paul

 

Heres an example of whats happening... at this point the video is really jumpy and so is the sound. like i said, last week my computer would play these with no problems at all...

Thanks guys...

Paul.

 

http://www.hardcoreware.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-22276.html
Read this. It looks like it was solved. Plus the guy has a NVidia card like you.

 

I've read through everything and tried what they suggested but no luck. With that guy, when he used a stand alone player which didn't use codecs like VLC Player his problem went away but with me, It doesn't help at all... all players do the same thing including VLC I still went ahead and tried anyway, I deleted my drivers for the nvidia card and re-installed from the original CD. The problem is still here......

Thanks but, any other ideas? This is driving me crazy, My 500Mhz Laptop is running MAME and nero encoding faster than this desktop. Something is seriously wrong here!

Paul.

 

I've still not solved this problem but I do have another question... Could these problems be due to lack of disk space? I'm asking because my 80Gb C drive has 21Gb free space and my 200Gb other internal drive has 22Gb free.

Would burning off a lot of the stuff on there help?

Thanks.

Paul.

 

Well IMO you should have about 10-15% free on your main HD (the one with the Windows) So I don't think that's the problem.

 

is it a brand new computer? if you've done everything try calling the OEM of your PC. maybe they could help. it could be the settings or a manufacturer's defect or something, so they just have to reconfigure it out...

 

Ok Thanks, I guess that rules that one out then. Really running out of ideas of what to try....

As for the age, I've had this PC for nearly 2 years now so its not new at all. It has all been perfect upto a week or so ago.

UPDATE: Tonight I removed the Gfx card & The Sound card and used the 'onboard' gfx & sound... problem is still there.... *sigh*

 

PROBLEM SOLVED!

Ok, Everything is back running at full speed! Encoding has gone back to normal, MAME is flying and movies are playing perfectly!

THE PROBLEM: StyleXP. Software which lets you change just about everything to do with windows. It had been working perfectly for months but I have been uninstalling and re-installing all my software to see if any are causing problems and this was the one!

Thanks anyway guys. I'm just so happy my machine is back.

 

So maybe it was a registry problem did you try before to uses a registry cleanner before install and uninstall......

 

Yes, I use Registry Mechanic (Full Version) so I don't usually have any problems in that department. Its weird, StyleXP has been installed on my machine for months and has never caused a problem. Maybe it was a mixture of something else installed more recently not liking StyleXP very much. I have no idea, I'm just happy to have my machine back!

Thanks for the help guys.