CPU usage spikes causing lag

A

asuh

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 14, 2004
Messages
316
Okay, this is getting really annoying. I have a problem now with my CPU lagging continuously. After I leave the computer on for a while, it all of a sudden, randomly starts to spike the CPU from about 2%-25% a little faster than a second per spike.

P4 2.6GHz
P4P800-Dlx
1GB Corsair PC3500
ATI 9800
Radeon Audigy 1 EX

120GB WD
160GB WD


I am running Windows XP Pro w/ SP2 with lots of different software. I have just reformated my drive about a week ago and this was even somewhat of a problem on my last Windows load. This new installation of Windows XP is on a totally different hard drive as well, so I really don't think it's a hardware issue.

When I reboot or go into standby mode then get back into Windows, the spike has stopped. It's only when I leave my computer on for a while that I start getting these spikes at a random time. I even tried to monitor what I'm using and when I load new software, but I do not see any correlation.

Also, some people might have asked if my hard drive is continuously active, but I do not see any lights flashing. I have also switched the sound card from one PCI channel to another (the only device using PCI right now) and that didn't work.

It doesn't seem to be affecting my paging file but my memory and CPU are affected. This is really annoying and I hope I can solve it soon!!

Thanks for ANY advice!

You can find the photos in this directory. Task Manager Photos
 
Yeah, I've already done that, more than once! I just finished installing this Windows installation a few weeks ago!
 
If you have a second comp just back your stuff up and reformat.... that or in the processes section of your task manager look to see whats using all the cpu power and uninstall it.
 
maybe I'm blind but I dont see the image...

could be anti-virus ..but If I had an AV program that used that much overhead I'd scream
 
as you'll see in the directory of photos i just added, everything seems to be running normal even when the usage is up. Oh, and now the spikes have turned into a constant increase around 15%. It still lags my computer around like before. No processes are causing it to happen, at least nothing obvious. I have also tried shutting down just about every program and it still has those spikes.
 
first thing a sucessful infection will do is compromise the firewall and AV scanners


refer to the Rampant Paranoia 101 Sticky at the top of the board ;)

if you can actually rule out an infection
then its likely an incompatibility issue, an IRQ storm or software issue
clues can often be found in the event viewer
start > run > eventvwr.msc
(both application and system)
 
Hey Ice Czar, thanks for the suggestion. I totally forgot about even checking the event viewer, usually that's one of the first places I should check anyway! But, upon viewing it, I did not see anything out of the normal. Just a few TCP/IP errors but that's understandable because our Internet is acting all loopy because the DSL modem needs to be replaced like yesterday.

So again, dead end. I do not believe it's an infection as I just scanned it yesterday and nothing turned up. Also, I do not believe it's a firewall compromise since this problem has been persistant for weeks now.
 
you did a remote scan yesterday?
or did you simply run the scanner on your box already?
in the 2nd case you cant really trust what its telling you
both Symantec and TrendMicro offer remote scans

to tell you the truth the only way to definitively rule out a serious malware infection is to analyze your traffic, that applies to a rootkit being run on your box which alters the OS at a very low level, one of the most common means to get on a freshly reformatted box being from running a crack (not accusing or anything, just something for everyone to be aware of)

the most common means of an infection on a new box is employong Windows Express Install to patch a system, the problem being several worms have an average time to infection less than the time it takes to patch them over the internet.

as far as being a conflict thats much tougher
you might want to try a trial of taskinfo 2003
it might reveal a bit more
 
i didn't exactly read all of the comments to see if this was recomended but..

something similar to this used to happen to me

is it explorer.exe thats taking up the cpu? if so just end taske then go to new task and put in explorer.exe. it fixes it for a while til you have to do it again.
 
Well, I took your advice Ice Czar and went to Symantec for a web scan. After the scan, my computer had no instance of any immediate virus threat. Then I checked security, and the only problem I had were a few ports like HTTP and SSH not being fully secure, but with a firewall and a router in front of the Internet, I believe my security is okay. At least okay enough that this problem shouldn't be consistantly happening for weeks. Right now, I do not have the problem I initially indicated, but I'm sure soon enough it will come back.

I also downloaded TaskInfo and I will run it during this problem as happens again.

And no, explorer.exe was never the problem.
 
A severely defragmented locked file can cause the problem, too. What does the pagefile look like? It might be worth the effort to check other locked files, too.
 
asuh said:
pagefile is jutt fine. take a look at the photos I linked.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I should have looked before. Still, I would look at locked file fragmentation. Windows defrag won't give you an accurate reading. O&O will do an analysis, and I'm sure that some other programs will, too. Aside from that, maybe it's a registry issue. Is yours fairly clean?

A thought...

Once I had a machine that had some MFT issues...that I caused. It caused the CPU to spike, but I had other problems to go along with that.

Also, if your mouse is going bad you can get spikes, and that can be the only symptom. Do you have a spare that you can use for awhile? It may be a good time to check for other hardware possible problems.
 
how do you check about this defrag thing? I'm not sure what O&O is.

This is really frustrating. I just installed this version a few weeks ago, and already might have to once again RE-install Windows. What the heck is that all about?! I would assume that since I've not had my windows up for very long that the registry is fairly clean, but obviously there's something or more wrong.

In fact, just recently my computer has randomly started to freeze. After my computer is on for a while, it'll freeze for about 5-10 secs for every 30 secs. It doesn't happen everytime I reboot, but just randomly. I'll boot it up, use my computer from anywhere between 10 minutes to 24 hours, and then all of a sudden it'll freeze for 5 secs. I think this spiking problem has just evolved...

Sigh.... I guess I might just have to reinstall everything AGAIN. Arg!

Oh, and just to top all of this off, I've added one more image to the folder (cpusage5) that shows a problem that has been recurring in my event viewer. This might be related to all of this problem, but I'm not sure.
 
mosin said:
A severely defragmented locked file can cause the problem, too. What does the pagefile look like? It might be worth the effort to check other locked files, too.
Click to expand...

You must mean "severely fragmented" and not "severely defragmented". But what do you mean by "locked file"?
 
I'm surprised that you would notice that your machine is 25% CPU busy. What do you mean by "lag"?

If your theory is that some processi s taking too many resources momentarily, then I guess you'll wnat to figure out what process it is and stop it or try and fix it.

The CPU charts in the Task Manager show you the CPU utilization for the whole system -- all processes. But what I think you want is to find the usage for individual processes.

The best way I know of to do that is using PerfMon.
 
that wireless NIC could easily be the problem
it gains attention (IRQ) until it times out and frees up again
yank it out and see if the problem still occurs
 
mikeblas said:
You must mean "severely fragmented" and not "severely defragmented". But what do you mean by "locked file"?
Click to expand...
Indeed. That's what happens when I stay up too late! I keep my machine severely defragmented, though, now that I think about it. :D


By the way, checking the wireless NIC is a good idea.



O&O Defrag
 
asuh said:
how do you check about this defrag thing? I'm not sure what O&O is.
Click to expand...
Are you saying you dont know what O&O is?

or

Are you saying you dont know how to degrag at all..... (because if this is the case... nevermind... just ... nevermind, please tell me you know what fragmention is, and you know how to degrag.. please.......)
 
I was saying I do not know what O&O is. I know how to defrag!
 
asuh said:
I was saying I do not know what O&O is. I know how to defrag!
Click to expand...

No worries. Certainly, not everyone knows every piece of software in the world.

O&O is a German company that makes a bunch of utilities. One of their programs is a defragmenter; they also sell a server version that lets you install and manage the defragmenter remotely.

I also really like their Drive LED program.

You can get sample versions and make your purchase at their website.
 
Here's an update on what's going on.

We had a Comcast guy come in to replace our cable modem on Saturday. Our Internet was lagging just as much as my computer was, not really consistant with the spikes though. However, I now wonder if that had something to do with it? I have no idea how it could have been, but I guess it's possible.

The main problems that I have now with my computer is that it will now randomly freeze. My computer hasn't spiked or used up constant CPU usage in a couple of days, though I'm not going to count it out that it might happen again soon. So what'll happen now is after my computer is on from either a few minutes to a few days, it'll freeze for about 5-10 seceonds and repeat this about every 20-30 seconds. I try to reboot, shutting down Windows to the actual shutdown screen, but I can leave it on for minutes upon minutes and it won't do anything. So, if this freezing problem happens, I have to reboot manually but waiting for all the programs to quit then hold down the power button for 5 seconds. If I'm not having this freezing problem, my computer will reboot just fine.

I have monitored the computer using TaskInfo as well as Task Manager, and when the computer freezes, the CPU usage will give a huge spike up to 100% right after it unfreezes. But no other software seems to be causing it a problem from viewing either of those programs. Thus, I'm still not sure why it does that.

I also went to Windows Update and it turns out I had a new driver for my wireless NIC and I installed that. Hopefully that'll solve some problems as well, though I do not know what to expect at this point. Anyway, I thought you might be interested to know what's going on.
 
In TaskInfo2003 what color is that big CPU spike?


Blue = Interrupts
Red = Kernal
Green = User


If its blue is likely hardware timing out because its got a bad connection or driver
(Ive had that happen and taskinfo spot it with both NICs and CDRW)
 
Okay, I've gotten sick of trying to solve this problem so I have a brand new installation of Windows that I've installed on another hard drive. The only other software that I've loaded is my ATI drivers. But, I do not think those drivers are causing any problems.

Upon viewing my Event Viewer, I find that I get two of the same consistant problems that I was getting in my original Windows install. They are the following:

The description for Event ID ( 1 ) in Source ( m4301a ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event: , Linksys Wireless-B USB Network Adapter v4.0 #2.
Click to expand...

(in reference to atapi drive, or DVD burner) The device, \Device\Ide\IdePort1, did not respond within the timeout period.
Click to expand...

I do not understand why this is happening. Is this faulty hardware likely to be causing my problems??
 
I believe that it is. Have you tried substituting them with other pieces? I'd replace the NIC first.
 
Arg! Okay, what I went ahead and did was download the Western Digital diagnostics tool to check the integrity of my hard drives. When I install it and try to run it, on all three of my hard drives it gives me cable errors.

It says this
Cable Test::Read diagnostics sector error"
Click to expand...

I tried searching google but nothing relevant was found. It's very possible that running this in Windows ithe problem. There are some DOS versions but I figure they created a Windows version so that I could skip the DOS part. Should I just download the DOS version?
 
yup

and ATACT too (bottom of that thread)
Id also test the RAM
check the cable connections and routing and go get some known good cables, the mobos latest chipset drivers (busmaster) as well
also possibly simplifying your config to test one drive at a time

you have a problem or two and you need to isolate what it is
the HDD, the cable, the busmaster driver, the mobo channel itself

additional things, check the jumpers, make them all Master and slave, dont mix one with cable select

make sure masters are at the end of the cable
that there is no slave without a master
that a HDD isnt set to single if there is a slave

mobo connector is blue, black is master & grey slave
also dont use cables longer than spec (18"),
review the link above for routing issues and EMI
junk round cables can be an issue
 
Okay, so I have done a few things.

I downloaded and ran the WD diagnostics tests on all of my hard drives. No errors found.
I downloaded and ran ATACT as you instructed, no ATA errors found.
I ran Memtest for my RAM, no errors.
As far as I know, my flat IDE cables which came brand new with my motherboard last year are working very well.
I have also upgraded my motherboard to the latest firmware, this was a few weeks ago.

One question I have is about the jumper settings. I do not have any mixed jumper selections, for I have set all of them to cable select. Because of my motherboard, as well, I have one drive per IDE slot or RAID slot. This means, on my motherboard, I have 4 ports which could be used to transmit data from 8 IDE devices. However, I am only using 5 devices which require IDE. On my RAID 2 slot, I have 2 devices with jumper set to cable select so they are properly being divided out to master and slave. However, I am only using these as extra IDE ports and I have not setup any RAID.

I also do not use any cables longer than 12".
 
some drives dont do so well with cable select and some chipsets might not like that confog
Id set the drives as Master\Slave and sumplify the config slowly adding back in drives until you can replicate the issue

(assuming that simplifying it solves the problem)

keep an eye out for those events
and start to research the specific issues that board and chipset might have
 
well, after these tests I did, I haven't really had any more spike problems! I don't really know what I did, but it seems to have worked. Maybe I just needed to shake things up a little.
 
Ice Czar: How much difference does having the master at the end of the IDE cable rather than the middle really make?

 
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