Compaq Presario SR2163 CPU overheating

My desktop computer is a Compaq Presario SR2163. I've had it for a long time in computer years. But it won't run cool anymore (per Speedfan). It was seriously overheating for a while and burned out the CPU. A new one was only $12, so I replaced it. Cleaned everything up, put a new fan on the heatsink, lightly applied the thermal paste and all was still not well. Discovered that Windows Defender was using huge amounts of CPU resources, so turned it off. Cooled right down. But only for a month or so. It's not as bad is it was--when it burned out the CPU it was operating at temps up over 87 degrees Centigrade at times.. I'm lucky it didn't literally burst into flames--now it's running right around 65-68 most of the time--even when idling--and CPU use is way up most of the time to around 80 to 100 percent. Odd. I started it in Safe Mode with Networking and it cooled right down into the 49-54 C range--plus CPU usage dropped down below 10% up to about 40%. Aha! I thought--A rogue process using up all my CPU time and causing overheat. But what process? I ran "Rogue Killer" and it found and deleted a suspect path, but that was all. SpyBot found no spyware, Avast! found no viruses. I did CTRL-ALT-DEL and got into Task Manager/Processes and poked around, terminating processes and process trees to see what would happen. Nada. Stll 65-68 degrees C. Is there a program that can tell me what's hogging my CPU and making it run at 100% most of the time? Any other thoughts?
Keith
Oh, yeah. OS is Vista Home.

 

Greetings, kjhansen56...

You might try Process Explorer - pretty good little program for sniffing out usage info. Be advised that it's fairly powerful, so don't go terminating unless you're sure about what you're killing.

 

There are also (sometimes) other symptoms that may or may not be related to the overheating problem. 1) It won't shut down. You click on shutdown and it goes through its shutdown cycle, the screen goes blank but the computer keeps accessing the hard-drive and it reboots. 2) It won't shut down the "rename" and "delete" processes. If, for example, you drag a file to the trashcan, it will say "deleting in process" or whatever it says, but that window never goes away. Same with the rename process. CTRL-ALT-DEL and Task Manager and End Task don't make it go away. You have to shut the computer off manually. When you turn it back on the file is deleted or renamed or whatever, but what is going on? I think it's more than a roque process, but SpyBot and Avast! haven't found anything. I tried Malwarebytes, but it doesn't work. Just sits endlessly "initializing" the scan process. Very strange.

 

Just an FYI: I did get MalwareBytes to work and it did find some problems. And I (apparently) successfully deleted a program called "TidyNetwork" that was (again apparently) causing some problems. Progress.. Not fixed, but progress.

 

Further update (hey, I'm retired so have a lot of time. Plus I have a cold so I'm stuck at home): MalwareBytes detected a bunch of iffy stuff (registry entrys) and allowed me to quarantine it all. Then I deleted some recently added files, and now the computer runs cooler (still not cool enough IMHO) at 58-62 degrees (C) at idle. Sometimes drops lower and sometimes higher, but 63 seems to be highest it gets even when running, so that's better than it was. This also had an effect on shut-down. It's shutting down when asked to, so that's good too. When
I ran the Process Explorer (as suggested, thank you) and it showed a Service Host taking up a lot of the computers CPU time still. It's for an file called AudioDG. Any idea what that is? I'm not comfortable shutting down a process that I dont' know anything about.
It's still not renaming and deleting files normally though.

 

I found this for Lenovo but it still might apply to your Compaq.
http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/documents/ht069905
Write down what changes you made and it anything appears broken, then undo the changes.

 

plodr; While your suggestion was for Windows 7, a variant worked for Windows Vista, so thanks. Turns out that PlayOn was running "virtual speakers" at wide open throttle. I put PlayOn on the computer for streaming video of all sorts of current shows. Unfortunately DSL is too slow for PlayOn's streaming.
So, more progress.

 

All problems fixed. Just took a clean reinstall of the OS. Found a free download online, used my OEM sticker code, and now it runs like new. Of course I lost all my non-Windows programs and have to reinstall them too, and all my bookmarks, etc., but I probably had too many of them anyway. CPU temps are in the 40-50 degree Centigrade range, it deletes and renames without any problems and it runs a whole lot faster than it did. I didn't want to do such a drastic solution, but nothing else was working. Case closed.