100% cpu usage on basic disk functions

My rig is 3ghz cpu, 2gb ram, 160gb sata drive and an 8600GT video card with a windows xp x64 OS. It was built as a gaming rig quite a while back and has been running fairly well since then. However I've begun noticing a general worsening sluggishness in responses, specially loading times of certain games, like GTA, Medal of honor and a few others. Although it performs well once the actual game has loaded, furthermore other games aren't affected at all like left 4 dead.

I've run a battery of tests & benchmarks on most of the hardware and it all comes back clean. However through observation I believe I've narrowed down the issue to a HDD related problem. Even opening my computer or regular folder browsing causes a severe sluggish response, with the task manager open I can see cpu usage jump to 100% for a second or few. However disk surface scans show no errors, and HDTune's benchmark (attached below) seems quite reasonable. So I've pretty much run out of ideas, I thought it might be the HDD controllers so I uninstalled them and rebooted so that they could be reinstalled but that didn't seem to produce anything. I've reset my BIOS to default settings, replaced my SATA cable and location without any fruitful result either.

So I'm looking for any advice that could help with my problem, thanks in advance

 

It could be a page file problem:

You may not find the pagefile.sys on reboot, either because XP has already removed it or because hidden files and folders are set to on.

 

I'm afraid thats not it, I had already tried moving the pagefile to a different drive and it didn't resolve it. I tried removing it all together as you suggested and still the same problem. The problem seems to be very apparent when browsing folders in quick succession, usually the system slows down so much that mousing around the screen causes it to appear like a slideshow on various mouse positions across the screen. I've never seen something like that, it sometimes causes a total system freeze.

That is as far as I've narrowed it down, however I can't narrow it down any further, anyone know any tools/diagnostics that can help tell me what the problem is ? I believe its HDD related but as the HDTune pic shows, it seems clean. If the problem is with disk reading, wouldn't hdtune have picked it up ?

edit:
I'd also like to note that I've tried browsing the same drive through a networked PC and do not recieve the same performance hit. Infact it browses pretty well so whatever it is has to be on the same system, something that causes basic disk reading to take up a serious amount of CPU.

 

Judging from your edit, it's likely to be something in the way Windows Explorer is set up; try using Autoruns to disable any 3rd party Explorer extensions. Caution - misuse of this tool can break Windows!

Start Autoruns, agree to the license, hit the Esc key to stop the scan. Options > Filter options, check Verify code signatures and hide both Windows and Microsoft entries > OK. Click the refresh button and allow the new scan to finish. The Explorer extensions are under the Explorer tab - caution - even MSFT don't sign all their own drivers/software - many of these entries will be good, removing the wrong one might make matters worse.

It's possible that something loading elsewhere is responsible, try looking under the Logon tab.

Can you find out which process is causing the high CPU%?

 

If Satrows idea doesn't work try hitting control/alt/del and start task manager,click show processes from all users and expand the box so you can see as many processes as possible,now try to recreate the problem by browsing or whatever causes it while watching the all the process's,the process that uses the cpu the most when the problem rears its head will be the culprit,possible solutions depend greatly on which process it is. "As Satrow Said"

EDIT OOPS!

Sorry missed that last sentence.

 

The process was explorer.exe (since I was browsing the diskdrive) which didn't make any sense why it would use up all the CPU. However after almost a week of trying I've finally managed to resolve the problem.

I was using Process Explorer in an attempt to narrow down the culprit process, except all processes seemed to be behaving normally (not including explorer.exe). Out of desperation I turned on all the columns and I noticed a somewhat large DPC (Deferred Procedure Call) count. It seemed this was taking up a rather large chunk of my cpu time for no apparent reason. Under normal circumstances this shouldn't be affecting me at all so after searching online I found a few tools to measure dpc latency and help pinpoint the problem. Eventually I found it was the motherboard's realtek audio driver, simply reinstalling it fixed the problem. Apparently when you browse a folder, the clicking sound triggered the system slowdown.

These are the tools I found, should anyone else run across a similar problem
Latency Mon (only runs on vista or 7)
DPC Latency Checker
Xperf (requires a hefty download as its part of the windows 7 sdk)

Thanks for all the help guys.

 

@ Rikky: No worries, you did a fine job of explaining what I'd only hinted at

Mondrawy, checking DPC's/drivers would have been the next stage if the earlier methods had discovered no obvious fault. I'm pleased you tracked down the problem and got it sorted!

They're the same tools I often recommend and I use them myself