Perpetual Hang - services.exe = 70-90% of CPU

Greetings good people of MGForum,

Stubborn Dell Vostro 400 (Dell srvc tag 7J3C4F1) stuck it's heels in the dirt this morning. CPU is always at 100%. Services.exe ranges from 70-90+%.

It's been slow in the past few weeks with a BSOD here and there so I ordered a new HD which won't arrive until Monday. Now this. Good grief.

Using (official/legit) XP Home SP3 (32bit), 4G max OS memory. Have paid subscription of Norton 360.

Intel Core2 Duo CPU E6550 @ 2.33GHz. Core 0: 41C, 1 thread. Core 1: 43C, 1 thread.

I'll post a HJT log next...

Thank you kindly in advance of any help and guidance...

 

Hi my friend , welcome to MG's :major

Go to Start - Run - typing msconfig in blank - you go to Startup tab - disabling all boxes except for antivirus - Apply - Ok - windows asked you about restart your machine , you must follow this movement :wave

 

Access Denied error. It says I must be logged in as administrator. Dunno the easiest way but I'll try.

I restarted and got the black screen with white letters saying "Diskette drive 0 seek failure." Then below it says press F1 to continue, F2 to enter setup.

 

Just as a test, remove all USB devices except for Keyboard and mouse. Try to boot again.

 

I haven't had any USB ports used other than keyboard and mouse.

I looged in as administrator via Safe Mode but it still wouldn't allow me to uncheck all the startup items via msconfig.

CPU was running at about 50-60% in safe mode.

 

Changing boot priority maybe your problem is solved , you can read this topic :wave

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/disk-drives/f/3534/t/19125045.aspx

 

falcon, i cleaned the registry with piriform's ccleaner yesterday morning. i think i messed up the registry. i tried to do several restore points and they all failed. could that be the problem?

 

Changed boot priority, no effect. Still running 100% CPU.

 

Download and run Advanced System Care.

Once you install, it will also give you to option to also download and install IO Bit Malware Fighter. Be sure to update the database (if prompted) before starting the scan.

First, do a full scan with IO Bit Malware Fighter. This will rule out any possible virus or malware infections as the cause of the high processor use.

Next, run Advanced System Care with all the option boxes checked. This will check for things including registry errors, hard disk condition and fragmentation issues that could be red flags.