CPU spikes

[LuminaryJanitor]

I'm getting some weird CPU spikes... Up to 100% for about half a second, during which everything freezes (mouse included).

Happens with all processes killed, CPU usage of all processes stays at 00 throughout, and AVG/Spybot/Adaware find nothing.

Seems to be completely random. Sometimes happens when I open/switch windows, sometimes for no reason when I've been staring at the same text document for twenty minutes with no other processes running. Sometimes two seconds apart, sometimes not for fifteen minutes (all those >50% are the problem in question):

Any ideas? This is confusing the hell out of me...


MSI K8N Neo4 Platinum
A64 3000+ (Stock)
WinXP SP2 (month-old install)

 

[HaMMerHeD]

Can you identify the task that is doing it? If you click on the "Processes" tab, and watch for it, you should see something jump up to ~100% for a short time. Then it is just a matter of identifying the process, and addressing it.

 

[Met-AL]

A program that may help you see which one is doing this is process tamer from DonationCoder.com.

It is designed to lower the priority of processes that hog the CPU for a long time...but what will help you is that it also will show you which ones are spiking.

If you try it, there are two options hide less than 1% and remove old, turn them off and watch it. You will see your problem if there is one.

 

[LuminaryJanitor]

Can you identify the task that is doing it?

Task Manager entries don't shift from 00... Trying Process Tamer right now, but of course, the one time I actually want it to happen, the fucking thing won't....

Exactly the same thing happened to me just half an hour ago - took my car in to get fixed, and by the time I got there I couldn't get the problem to reappear...