CPU usage 100%????

hi,
I`m running win2k prof. on a P4 2.4, 512MB Ram, 40GB HDD, Asus GeForce 2 GTS. For the past few days, i`ve been noticing tht whenever, i press alt+ctrl+del to c wat is running in the background, and i click processes, the indicator shows tht my CPU usage is 100%. I don`t know how this is happening. i don`t have anything open. In the background Norton Anti virus will be running. In the past when i used to do this, i never got SPU usage at 100% for more than 2 seconds. When i close all programs, it shows tht the CPU usage was 100% a second or so ago and then it reduces to 0%.
Wat cud be the problem? is somethintg running in the background? I`ve checked the processes and all the programs running there seem to be the windows programs including Norton.
Please help me out guys. I`m suffering from a serious performance drain.

Thanx.

 

can you find the name of the process(es) that are sucking up all your cpu time? Because it can literally be any of the processes.

 

there is
1. svchost taking abt 12,000K,
2. ccApp taking abt 13,000K
3. IEXplore taking 24,000K
4. NMain taking 21,000 K

even after closing explorer and disabling norton anti virus, i still c tht the CPU usage is 100%.

 

explorer refers to internet explorer. The others are all contributing in the 1,000s of K range with a few in the hundred K range.

 

oh yeah, you're running 2k! *slap* yeah... um, why don't you list everything. maybe i'll recognize something as being the potential troublemaker.

and both ccapp and nmain belong to the norton group, if you didn't know (but i'm sure you do)

 

errr... one more thing. does CPU usage have anything to do with the PC being ON for looooooooong hours... like more than 8 hrs?
becoz i checked the CPU usage after abt such a period.

 

How do i know which application is using how much power? What indiacates the power usage by each application? PID, CPU or CPU Time?

Sorry to cause all this inconvenience, but i happen to be a newbie.

 

Re: addendum to above

not tht i haven`t thought abt spyware. but, i just didn`t have the tools to remove them. i have spybot search & destroy. it only detects adware. nothing else.
lemme chk out the others u have just suggested

 

ok. i chked out which one is taking max CPU. it turned out to be ccApp taking nearly 98%. But this has not happened before. the problem started only recently.

wat seems to be the problem?

 

Norton Antivirus is the problem.

Not sure how you would fix it, other than removing it though.

Do you have all the updates?

 

Remove Norton??? ERrrrrrrrrrrr is tht a good idea? i don`t have any other anti virus prog.
yup it`s updated till ... 7th june 2004(the virus definitions, tht is)
The version is norton anti virus 2004. i don`t think tht needs any updating.

 

Your call.

That is your problem application though.

 

changing anti-virus programs

Caliph, if they say it's the main cause of your problems well, then - it's the main cause of your problems. I thought I wouldn't know what to do without McAfee until almost every problem I was coming here for seemed to point TO McAFEE. It was time to cut it loose.

I went to the thread "What is your preferred Anti-virus and why?" (that's exactly how the title is) it was started on 3-07-04 and revived in May -- there's actually a lot of threads here where peopel "debate" their anti-viruses. I don't know how to make a link to that thread though I'm sure someone else does. (Yes, I looked at the [MG] thread linking thing but how do I know the NUMBER of the thread ----)

Anyway - it may be helpful and personally - I have loved AVAST ever since I started using it!