Weird spikes to 100% CPU usage (2 Viewers)

[Ferox13]

Well 'spikes' might be the wrong term as they often go on for 10-15 minutes.

Basically - I'd be surfing on laptop - mayve a few tabs open in firefox and maybe listening to MP3s on Media player and then i get a 100% cpu usage and my machine turns into a slug.

Some times after I reboot the spike is still there. I disabled my Adware at start up which i read might cause it but its still happening. Any ideas?

I'm running XP on a 1.6 centrino with 2gig ram.

Here's the back ground progs running:

 

[Napalm]

had a prob with this before, I suspect you have an intruder hogging your machine, try a msconfig and see what happens or try and shut down all the running exe's...

 

[pete]

Well 'spikes' might be the wrong term as they often go on for 10-15 minutes.

Basically - I'd be surfing on laptop - mayve a few tabs open in firefox and maybe listening to MP3s on Media player and then i get a 100% cpu usage and my machine turns into a slug.

Some times after I reboot the spike is still there. I disabled my Adware at start up which i read might cause it but its still happening. Any ideas?

I'm running XP on a 1.6 centrino with 2gig ram.

Here's the back ground progs running:

for starters run msconfig and disable realsched.exe (real player), jusched.exe (java) & acrotray (acrobat) auto updaters.

 

[Ferox13]

Thanks guys.

So u think the spikes were those programs trying to update?

 

[pete]

Thanks guys.

So u think the spikes were those programs trying to update?

i dunno, but they're pretty unnecessary

 

[Froog]

could be malware type stuff too. use adaware and spybot.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I ran this tester thing on my pc and it says I have a "Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz Model 2, Stepping 4" type of CPU and the speed is 1799 MHz. Does the 1799 MHz have any relation to the 2.4 GHz? Do CPUs decline with age? I have this yoke a while by now.

I notice the plug-in window in reaper has a handy guide to CPU power the plugins are using. With one reverb plugin on a long heavyish reverb it shows around 0.5% while reaper is idle and then goes up to around 30% when one track of audio is run through it. I've got 1.5 gb of ram and I'm thinking of adding more but will I notice any improvement in the plugin counts if its the CPU that matters there? I have a feeling I used to be able to get a bit more welly out of this pc.

I ran a memory tester thing which told me this:


Maximum Memory Capacity: 2097152 MB
Currently Installed Memory: 1536 MB
Available Memory Slots: N.A.
Total Memory Slots: 2
Dual Channel Support: N.A.
CPU Manufacturer: GenuineIntel
CPU Family: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz Model 2, Stepping 4
CPU Speed: 1799 MHz

and the ram is 1024MB of DDR PC2700 + 512MB of DDR PC2700. Would upgrading to 2GB of PC3200 do me much good? It seems to get 2GB i have to get two 1GB ram things and I have only the two slots so cant go higher. Does anyone understand this stuff?

 

[Ferox13]

That looks like your CPU is running at the wrong speed. I'm no expert but this might be set up wrong in your bios..

I also think you can get 2gig sticks of DDR PC2700..

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Its not like 2006 around here anymore. I think it'll be grand though, I'll get some more ram and then get some more rock.

 

[pete]

CPU definitely looks underclocked. Could be a power saving utility, or it could be bios settings.

2gb seems like a very low physical limit. Run speccy on it, get your motherboard details and check online.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Is getting the clocking thing right something that a non-techie could expect to accomplish?

 

[pete]

if your CPU settings are set to default in the bios then it should just work properly. would anyone have made changes?

but start with the software side of things - i've an ASUS motherboard & it comes with a utility that dynamically limits your CPU speed to save power / noise / heat. Make sure you've nothing like that running.

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

Righty-oh. Thanks Pete, I'll try that.

Is it possible the thing is just getting old and slowing down?

 

[pete]

old age might slow down your OS (or certainly make it feel slow in relation to other machines) but is unlikely to affect reported CPU speed

 

[Ferox13]

Righty-oh. Thanks Pete, I'll try that.

Is it possible the thing is just getting old and slowing down?

No the CPU won't slow down over time but as Pete said there are other factors that will slow it down..

 

[Napalm]

If your using Firefox it has had a memory leak problem for a few months and its caused me no end of pain, it could be that...

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

I used to notice firefox acting up alright, I've ditched it in favour of chrome now. FF feels very dowdy and clunky once you get used to the stylishness of chrome.

Anyway, turns out 2gb of RAM is the maximum for the motherboard I have so that'll have to do me, I have the manual and it says it there. I went into the BIOS and it said CPU Internal Freq was 1.80GHz and the CPU Operating speed was 800(100). After a bit of googling I increased this last yoke to 2400(133) - it goes up to 3200(133) - and now the CPU Internal Freq says 2.40GHz and the CPU Speed is 2402 MHz instead of the 1799 MHz it was at.

Does that sound like a reasonable thing to do?

CPU THRM THROTTLING is at 62.5% - would upping that to 75% be sensible?

Thanks Thumped!

 

[Napalm]

^
I'd leave it as it is, like fine tuning a car thats ten years old if ya get my drift...

 

[Denny Oubidoux]

^
I'd leave it as it is, like fine tuning a car thats ten years old if ya get my drift...

No, I don't get it at all, not a clue. Am I doing bad?

 

[pete]

I used to notice firefox acting up alright, I've ditched it in favour of chrome now. FF feels very dowdy and clunky once you get used to the stylishness of chrome.

Anyway, turns out 2gb of RAM is the maximum for the motherboard I have so that'll have to do me, I have the manual and it says it there. I went into the BIOS and it said CPU Internal Freq was 1.80GHz and the CPU Operating speed was 800(100). After a bit of googling I increased this last yoke to 2400(133) - it goes up to 3200(133) - and now the CPU Internal Freq says 2.40GHz and the CPU Speed is 2402 MHz instead of the 1799 MHz it was at.

Does that sound like a reasonable thing to do?

CPU THRM THROTTLING is at 62.5% - would upping that to 75% be sensible?

Thanks Thumped!

CPU THRM THROTTLING tells the BIOS how much of a speed limit to apply to your CPU if it's overheating, but 1.8Ghz isn't 62.5% of 2.4Ghz. Is your CPU overheating?

Have you tried setting the CPU FSB & multiplier (or whatever the applicable settings are) to auto? Seems odd they're not defaulting to the CPU's native settings.