unexplained cpu max out issues

This one has me befuddled. I have even gone as far as totally redoing the system drive back to original windows reinstall, and NOTHING else, to remove any doubt that I have malware or anything. It is easier for me to redo the system than troubleshoot sometimes, as everything important is backed up.

Anyway, whenever running basic things like a video on youtube, playing a simple game on zone.com, to playing other games I have, my CPU usage goes to max about every two minutes, and only for about 30 seconds or so, and goes back down to around 10 or so, and everything is fine until the next cycle comes around. Now I watch the Task Manager when this happens, and the only two or three things that the CPU is showing usage on is SYSTEM IDLE PROPERTIES, and the one called TASKMGR (which is the task manager), and the one directly above the Idle properties which is called SYSTEM is the one that suddenly takes a liking to use the rest of the resources. Why does the one called SYSTEM hog the remaining resources, every time this happens is when everything gets jerky, graphics, mouse, game graphics etc.

What all is controlled under SYSTEM that I may have a problem with. My system is a home built system, I build other systems that are far less powerful and do not have this issue at all.

The system in question has:
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 6000+, MMX, 3DNow (2 CPUs)
1920MB RAM
Page file 1721MB used, 1964MB available
on an ASUS M2V-MX SE motherboard.
and an MSI NX8600GT (Nvidia GeForce videocard)

Any ideas would be most welcome.

Keith

 

How much RAM is the system using?

Do you have your pagefile set to auto-manage?

 

I have 1.87GB of RAM

Under Virtual Memory it says total paging file size for all drives: 1919MB
Then under the change tab it takes me to Virtual Memory which is set to system managed size on system drive (C)

 

I am using Windows XP Professional SP3.
I will install process explorer soon and see what it reveals, but the one that does use the most is the one directly above system idle process which is just called system, that is the one that maxes out the CPU every 2 mins or so.

Will also do the Java thing too. Hope we can nail down this problem.

 

Have not forgot about the thread. But you know how it is, when you bring your car into a mechanic shop and it doesn't act up. Well presently my system is NOT acting up. It is fine some days, other time not so lucky, but I will be back with the issue again I am sure, and will have the information from the Process program.

Keith

 

Just to let you know why I asked this:

Having your page file set to System Managed means that the computer will increase and decrease the size of the page file when it needs to. This can lead to high disc and CPU resource usage.

If you set the minimum and maximum values of your page file to the same thing, and slightly more than is recommended at the bottom of the page file changing window, then the system will not have to keep changing the page file size.

This may improve performance.

Hope this helps,

 

I will try this and see if this weird problem comes back, the computer has been behaving itself lately, seems this issue only creeps up every now and then. When I first built the system I never had this problem. I am also trying a few ideas I have that involve changes I have made to the system in the past. I will keep you all posted.

 

Okay, I set the page file sizes both to 3000, since it said recommended is 2878, and you said go a bit higher. Not much change. Then later I was simply listening to a CD with the Windows Media Player maximized to fill the screen(displaying the moving background graphics it does to the music), and on the other monitor I started the Internet Explorer to browse, and it started hiccupping again, so I shut down IE and started the process explorer, and had both running, and every 2 minutes it would do it's thing and max out. Now under ther process explorer, the system idle dropped to around 24.03, the Interrupts were at .69 which is the Hardware Interrupts, and the next one which is DPC went to 10.19 (Deferred Procedure Calls), and the one called system was at 3.89.

Now I was playing with a few things, and decided to bring Windows Media Player back to original size which is not full screen but not minimized, and the hiccup went away....so it seems it is when I have a maximized application on one screen and something else on the other that it hiccups.:confused

This system never had that problem when I first built it, which brings up another idea, the motherboard has on-board video, which I do not use, but have active, and I have an external videocard plugged in to the PCI Express slot, and this card allows 2 monitors to be hooked up simultaneously. Could it be that I am having issues with the internal card being active and no monitor hooked to it, and if so, how do I disable it. When I first built the system, I did not install the internal video card drivers, but this last time I wiped the drive I did install them. :banghead

 

Uninstall the drivers for the onboard video and then you should be able to disable the onboard video card in the BIOS.

You are correct that the onboard card may be interfering with the add-on card.

 

Okay, I went into my computer - hardware - devices, and found the internal card icon which had a red x over it, when I clicked it it said the device is NOT using any resources because it is disabled, which makes me wonder if this was really the culprit since it said it was not using any resources, anyway, so I went on ahead and deleted it. So I am going to see if I have an option to disable it in BIOS now, so XP won't see it upon reboot and pester me with installing the drivers. Will report back like a good soldier.:-D

 

Well, it was a bit scary at first, because BIOS did NOT display on any of my monitors, until I connected one to the internal port. Went and disabled it, and rebooted with both monitors connected to the external card and now I see my motherboard splash screen which I never got to see since I stopped using the internal card. So, I think this is what has been causing my issue. I will run it through some of the things I have done tonight that it hiccups through, to see if it still does it. Will be back for an update.

 

I hope this works for you!

 

Well, I have also had an IT guru helping me out, and he told me to check for proper cooling of the GPU and CPU. I thought this a bit crazy and 'out there', but I figured why not give anything a try. Well, I must admit my GPU was clean, but the CPU because the fins are closer together was pretty dusty, so I blew out the dust and cleaned up the insides, and we will see if this helps. He said it might have been the CPU throttling the system down to cool itself off, he helped me build the system and he knew my system has big radiator looking things with copper pipes coming out of the board to the fins. So, I will see what happens tonight, as it still hiccupped today while watching a DVD, but this was before the deep cleaning. It would explain a lot, since I have never cleaned the system but once, but not since I have reinstalled the OS several times trying to fix this, so if it was an overheating issue, that part remained with the new install. Here's hoping.

 

Just to follow up with the status of my problem. Every since I blew the dust out of the CPU cooling fan and GPU, my problem has disappeared. I have been watching full screen videos and downloading stuff and chatting though IM all at the same time. Not even so much as a flicker or skip from anything. The final test will be this weekend, when I watch TV on it and stream live content off the Internet, after all that I will play the game I was playing while this stuttering was going on. Will post results this weekend, but I am guessing this issue is now fixed. DUST on CPU cooling fins is BAD news.

Keith

 

Good note for the future, I think.

However, computers can be pretty resilient sometimes. Take this for example: http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...ox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&sa=N&um=1

 

Well, I am here to report that all is very well with my system now. I just got done watching the race on one monitor and streamed in the Internet stats, and chatted with friends, and CPU never went above 30% for long. No stuttering, games play great again, so it had to have been attributed to dust on the CPU fins. Thanks for everyones help on this pesky issue. I have had dusty systems before and they ran fine, but I guess with today's faster and newer technology, they need more cooling than the systems back then.

Keith