"System" is going crazy on CPU today. Why & what to do?

Discussion in 'Software' started by conceptualclarity, Oct 21, 2013.

  1. I have not noticed this happening before. Since starting up today, I have been at virtually non-stop 100% CPU usage, and System is the culprit. As a result my computer is very slow, and some processes are not responding.

    Why would this be happening? Is there anything I can do to stop it?





    Windows XP
    Home Edition
    Version 2002
    32-bit
    Service Pack 3

    Dell DIMENSION DIM2400
    Intel(R)
    Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.66GHz
    x86 Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 9
    2.05 GB of RAM
    Graphics Card: Intel(R) 82845G/GL/GE/PE/GV
    Graphics Controller, 64 Mb
    Hard Drive Size 114.4GB
    Free Space was 35.8GB; now 22.0GB because after backing up My Documents on Google Drive, Google Drive has later duplicated the whole darn thing on my hard drive. Will be looking into remedying that soon.
    Motherboard: Dell Computer Corp., 0G1548
    Antivirus : Panda Cloud free
     
  2. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Greetings, conceptualclarity.

    Try these:

    1. Reboot the machine to see if the symptoms change.

    2. Disconnect from the internet to see if the symptoms change.

    3. Boot into Safe Mode. If the problem goes away then selectively manage the items in the msconfig Startup list until you find the culprit(s).

    4. Run some good manual antimalware scanners - nothing against the idea of a cloud antivirus but as TechRadar points out:
    In other words if there's something nasty going on with your computer Panda Cloud can't do much about it, and some malware manifests symptoms such as yours.
     
  3. AtlBo

    AtlBo Major Geek Extraordinaire

    conceptualclarity...

    Have you tried looking at the System process in Process Explorer? If you have PE, you can open it and look to see what specifically under the System process is using the processor. Expand the process headings until you find the source of your problem. Then you can determine what to do to stop the processor usage...

    Process Explorer is from Microsoft and can be downloaded here:

    http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/microsoft_process_explorer.html
     
  4. I did that.

    It was happening both with & without a browser up.

    Your suggestions? I have Malwarebytes, but it's gotten to the point where it takes so long to do a full scan on my old system that it's useless to me. I guess I could use it to scan my system piece by piece. I use Spybot, Iobit Malware Fighter, and SUPERAntispyware. I perceive all 3 to be better at finding stuff than Malwarebytes.

    Yes, I have PE and use it a lot. But the System attack was over by the time I was able to read this.

    I was determining the top offenders by looking at Kingsoft PC Doctor Monitor. I decided to use Process Explorer to suspend the top several CPU-eating processes other than System, and that seemed to get things back to normal.
     
    Last edited: Oct 21, 2013
  5. Earthling

    Earthling Interplanetary Geek

    Appearances can deceive. All three will report tracking cookies as malware but MBAM simply ignores them as they are not malware. BTW, if you are using Spybot's Tea Timer it is notorious for causing the sort of symptoms you are experiencing. Most Spybot users turn it off - or at least used to when it was more widely used.
     
  6. Caliban

    Caliban I don't need no steenkin' title!

    Looks like AtlBo and Earthling are steering you down the right path.

    Be advised for future reference that a.) having a browser open or closed and b.) disconnecting from the internet are not the same.
     
  7. tritonobx

    tritonobx Staff Sergeant

    You might also look to see if wuauclt.exe is running...Windows Update. On my XP the last two patch Tuesdays have seemingly caused the same symptom. I found it best to set Windows Update to at least download the updates instead of simply notifying me to download and install them. Windows Update will run at times on startup but then stop. However if it continues to run or is hard to terminate, it might be suspect. Good luck.
     

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