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CPU usage spikes... weird! HELP!

L

lordroy

Gawd
Joined
Apr 25, 2001
Messages
703
Ok... been using the below (see sig for spec & ect)computer for quite some time. I might have a videocard problem... but...

Ive been playing City of Heroes, Dawn of War, Doom3, ect...

Now I get an intermittent CPU Usage spike of around 20% every 5 seconds...

Adaware, Spybot, Virus scans all clean. All current drivers. System Chkdsk'ed & Defrag'ed...

Nothing is running in the background.

Anyone have any guess?

-R
 
Have you left the task manager open on the processes tab to see which process jumps to 20% under the CPU column? That's my only suggestion.
 
How long has it been since you first installed Windows with all the updates?
It sounds like Windows corruption. What is damaged I really don't know, only that I bet if you formatted and reinstalled everything you have now the spikes would disappear.
 
havenoclu said:
Have you left the task manager open on the processes tab to see which process jumps to 20% under the CPU column? That's my only suggestion.
Click to expand...

I did open the task manager... and watched... nothing jumped at all.. I watched for about 10 minutes... all the processes were quiet... cpu idle at 99% and whatnot... but on the CPU Usage tab... 0% 0% 0% 0% 20% 0% 0% 0% 0% 19% 0% 0% 0% 0% 21%... ect...

-R
 
The_Mage18 said:
How long has it been since you first installed Windows with all the updates?
It sounds like Windows corruption. What is damaged I really don't know, only that I bet if you formatted and reinstalled everything you have now the spikes would disappear.
Click to expand...

I have done a recent flush and format... reinstall everything... maybe 1 month ago... I am buying a new video card tommorow... (BFG6800OC)... Will re-install everything from scratch and re-partition/format 120gb drive into two 60gb partitions.

-R
 
I ended up buying a BFG6800GT today.... mmm mmm mmm 256mb of GDDR3...

Upon getting it home... I of course started by wiping my HD (both partitions) and when I went to re-partition it... it gave me bunches of errors... I was like OH SH*T!... pulled out the WD datalife floppy... it found bunches of errors that it apparently easily fixed... I am currently writing "0"s across the drive... something that will take 12 hours to do... when that is done at 3am... I will re-partition... re-format... and re-install everything... and will let you good people know if I am good to go!

-R
 
Yea it could be a dieing drive... low level format is a good idea (what you are doing) but I doubt it will help anything because if it's dieing it's dead. Pick up another HD...

~Adam
 
how fragged are you? i had all these crazy spikes and then i realised one of my drives was like, HORRIBLY formatter....took something like 80 runs of disk-keeper to get it blue again..after that, the problems ceased...
 
dwayne001 said:
how fragged are you? i had all these crazy spikes and then i realised one of my drives was like, HORRIBLY formatter....took something like 80 runs of disk-keeper to get it blue again..after that, the problems ceased...
Click to expand...

Sadly, I think I probably caused this myself. For the last 4-5 months I have become an addict of Bittorrent. While it is probably one of the best filesharing programs out there, it causes your HD to become horribly fragged all the time... small bits constantly being written everywhere... and while I was always careful about de-fragging all the time... there is only but so much you can do.

My solution to this problem is: I will install a second HD in the comp dedicated to my Bittorrent needs, using it as a scratch disk for Photoshop, ect... Hopefully this is the problem...

(I am still waiting for the low level format to finish... 4 more hours to go!)

-R
 
UPDATE

Ok... thought the 120gb HD was borked... started hearing clicks from within the box... figured it was dead via WD Click of death. Put different known good HD in the machine... installed OS... started getting clicks... weird... pulled CPU and replaced with known good CPU... still lots of clicks... BSOD... Critical stop error...

Now.... everything but the memory, motherboard, and psu have been swapped out... reading over everything above... any more ideas? My guess is motherboard/onbard IDE.... possibly the PSU is not giving me enough juice... I dont know at this point... might go out and buy the ASUS A7V600 Monday... just to check... and to give me another board to play with...



-R
 
lordroy said:
Sadly, I think I probably caused this myself. For the last 4-5 months I have become an addict of Bittorrent. While it is probably one of the best filesharing programs out there, it causes your HD to become horribly fragged all the time... small bits constantly being written everywhere... and while I was always careful about de-fragging all the time... there is only but so much you can do.

My solution to this problem is: I will install a second HD in the comp dedicated to my Bittorrent needs, using it as a scratch disk for Photoshop, ect... Hopefully this is the problem...

(I am still waiting for the low level format to finish... 4 more hours to go!)

-R
Click to expand...
Having a lone BT disk is still gonna spike things up when you access it to playback movies or whatever. Youre gonna have to defrag that thing--that's the problem i had w/ spikes before. explorer just gets out of control when dealing with an immensely fragged drive.
If you have dual processors or HT (I can't see your sig as i type this), you can route explorer to use the secondary processing unit, that should cut down on the spike symptoms, while the machine deals the the fragmentation. it's only a quick fix though. you're gonna have to dwonload, and then defrag...which after a 10gig download shouldnt take that much time. It may help to get two smaller drives like 80giggers and then, have one download wave (like if you dL two files at a time) go to drive A while making sure drive B is defragged. when those two pass, download them to drive B while drive A is defragged. stay away from disk keepers smart defragging option and schedule your always on download machine to defra at times the disk isnt being accessed. Since I work, I have that machine perform defrags once a day at like 11am....
 
lordroy said:
UPDATE

Ok... thought the 120gb HD was borked... started hearing clicks from within the box... figured it was dead via WD Click of death. Put different known good HD in the machine... installed OS... started getting clicks... weird... pulled CPU and replaced with known good CPU... still lots of clicks... BSOD... Critical stop error...

Now.... everything but the memory, motherboard, and psu have been swapped out... reading over everything above... any more ideas? My guess is motherboard/onbard IDE.... possibly the PSU is not giving me enough juice... I dont know at this point... might go out and buy the ASUS A7V600 Monday... just to check... and to give me another board to play with...


-R
Click to expand...



Yah...looks like this it more than a defrag issue....
 
try and locate the clicking sound better, what ever is making it is obviously the cause of the problem... the cdrom? could cause instability

I dont know what else would cause clicking.. fans, hd, cdrom.. anything else in that box?

~Adam
 
CleanSlate said:
try and locate the clicking sound better, what ever is making it is obviously the cause of the problem... the cdrom? could cause instability

I dont know what else would cause clicking.. fans, hd, cdrom.. anything else in that box?

~Adam
Click to expand...

I pulled everything out of the box except the HD & CD-Rom... Replaced the HD with different one... changed HDs... I cant figure out where the clicking is coming from exactly... the CPU fan is too loud to figure it out.. (I never knew how loud it was before... it sits in a cubby...

I am going to pick up that Asus MB tommorow... on my way home from work... hopefully that will solve the probem... otherwise it is the RAM or PSU. Nothing else left.

-R
 
CleanSlate said:
the cdrom...... remove it.

~Adam
Click to expand...


CD-Rom is out... will try a different one. Cant see how a CD-Rom and/or DVD/CDR can give me critical stop errors or cpu spikes... but Im willing to try anythin.

Now I have to figure out how to install something to test the system...



-R
 
just take the cdrom out and see if it errors again... if the cdrom is so borked I could see how it'd cause critical errors, large voltage spikes, amp sucking... al;though I dont see how it wouldn't of died already doing that.. anything is possible though. I'd pick up a new mobo as well lol, that's gotta be frustrating.

~Adam
 
Now I am leaning toward PSU. I have been running the puter with both of the sides off... no extra HDs or CDroms... only the one HD for the system, one stick of memory, ect... started running 3dMark05 demo... I started getting clicks and spikes (oh well CDrom it wasnt)... so I turned and put my finger on the HD... to see if I could "feel" any clicks coming directly from it...

I sat there for about 5 minutes waiting for the next click... when it came... the whole system seemed to hesitate... as if the power were getting sucked away... gonna run MBM in the background in a minute to see if the PSU is doin anything weird.

This is the 3rd PSU from the same company... in as many years.... that has given me some sort of trouble... the first one with problems right out of the box and they would not accept the return... saying it was a canadian piece... so I couldn't return it... still cant figure that out...

Im gonna pull my PSU from my server to see if that clears things up... yet another lengthy process...


BTW. The word is DYING... not DIEING... hehe...

-R
 
OK... tell me if I am lookin to buy a PSU...

Ran 3Dmark about 10 times... every time it gets ready to start, the computer clicks once or twice... the CPU fan "dips" in power (that I can hear) and the whole computer tends to slowwww down... I am getting 3850 3dmarks with my BFG6800GT... a bit lower than the 5200 or so most people seem to get (I credit this to my 2400XP)...

I check the log on MBM. The +12V normally runs around 11.3 - 11.5. When I am running the Demo, it goes down to around 10.2 - 10.7. This seems really really low. Yes?


I pulled out the 6800GT and put in the Ti4200 again... 3dmark05 wont run on the Ti4200... Gonna try the 3dmarks03 version if I still have it around...

-R
 
Now I am totally crapped out. Put in the Ti4200 (which I thought was going bad... thought it was the original problem, spent $420 on a new videocard to replace)... ran the 3dmark03 on it (still only 1HD, no CDRom, 1 stick memory, 1 fan(cpu)). Not a single glitch or stutter. Not a single problem yet. Cant figure it out.

MBM reports that the +12V is solid at 11.13... no dips or struggle...

I am tearing my hair out here...

I really dont want to have to take my server PSU out because it is such a pain to do... but I feel like I have no other choice... its either the MB or the PSU... right?

Is a BFG6800GT so damned power hungry it will kill a system... shouldnt a 450w PSU be able to feed that beast... what was causing my original problems with CPU usage spikes? I cant seem to figure this out... i feel like such a failure at being a technician!!!!

-R
 
It's def the psu, that psu can't handle that gfx card or it's dying. The clicking is probably coming from the psu.

The cpu spikes... I dunno, I don't remember that much about your original problem.

~Adam
 
CleanSlate said:
It's def the psu, that psu can't handle that gfx card or it's dying. The clicking is probably coming from the psu.

The cpu spikes... I dunno, I don't remember that much about your original problem.

~Adam
Click to expand...


My original problem:

lordroy said:
Ok... been using the below (see sig for spec & ect)computer for quite some time. I might have a videocard problem... but...

Ive been playing City of Heroes, Dawn of War, Doom3, ect...

Now I get an intermittent CPU Usage spike of around 20% every 5 seconds...

Adaware, Spybot, Virus scans all clean. All current drivers. System Chkdsk'ed & Defrag'ed...

Nothing is running in the background.
-R
Click to expand...


Ya think a faulty PSU is the problem for the spikes?

-R
 
I honestly can't tell you if it is or isn't... that's an odd problem. What service is taking up the 20% in the task manager?

~Adam
 
MBM reports that the +12V is solid at 11.13... no dips or struggle...

Yikes! 11.13???? :eek:
 
CleanSlate said:
I honestly can't tell you if it is or isn't... that's an odd problem. What service is taking up the 20% in the task manager?

~Adam
Click to expand...

I kinda answered this before too..

lordroy said:
I did open the task manager... and watched... nothing jumped at all.. I watched for about 10 minutes... all the processes were quiet... cpu idle at 99% and whatnot... but on the CPU Usage tab... 0% 0% 0% 0% 20% 0% 0% 0% 0% 19% 0% 0% 0% 0% 21%... ect...

-R
Click to expand...

I am now running the system listed below again... I have two choices... buy a new PSU... which I hope someone will have something in town... or... return my new videocard... and I think I have to get a new PSU anyway...

I dont know which... but leaning towards the first option... cuz either way I have to get the new PSU... and I would really really like to have a great videocard for once... even if my system is behind...

-R
 
ShuttleLuv said:
MBM reports that the +12V is solid at 11.13... no dips or struggle...

Yikes! 11.13???? :eek:
Click to expand...

From what I have seen in the past... thats about right... I used to have a PSU that ran 12.5 on the +12V... and I had another that ran 11.8... I think 11.3 is a bit low... wish there were a way to fix it.

-R
 
Another Update:

Turned the computer on today... MBM is reporting the +12V @ 11.07... its getting worse. So I am going to buy an Antec 550!

Wish me luck!

-R
 
lordroy said:
My solution to this problem is: I will install a second HD in the comp dedicated to my Bittorrent needs, using it as a scratch disk for Photoshop, ect...
-R
Click to expand...

A bit of a side issue back here, but for Bittorrent, you can use Azureus, or another program that has an option for "Allocate and zero new files on creation". So that whenever it starts a new file, it allocates all the space right then, instead of allocating a few bytes at a time constantly.
 
Soralis said:
A bit of a side issue back here, but for Bittorrent, you can use Azureus, or another program that has an option for "Allocate and zero new files on creation". So that whenever it starts a new file, it allocates all the space right then, instead of allocating a few bytes at a time constantly.
Click to expand...


I have been using ABC... but ill give that a thought.

-R
 
Having a large file lop in all the same space is cool, but it could still cause fragmentation. Your best bet bet is to get another drive and STILL implement the total file allocation while the download is happening. I'll limit your defragging needs BUT you're still gonna need to run disk-keeper everyonce in a while.
 
voltages can jump up and down but as long as they consistently stay above ~11v I wouldn't be too worried.

~Adam
 
I took one more look at the PSU +12V with MBM. It was reporting 10.9-11.1. Jumped out to BIOS and looked at the +12V rail and it reported as 11.13.

I replaced the PSU with an Antec Truepower 550W. I have not had a stutter yet.

That is the last Enermax PSU I will use. They might do a great job at cabling, but their track record with the PSU itself from me is now 1 of 3, and the 3rd one better not go anytime soon. I called Enermax and they said that I could send them my 2 PSUs (on my nickle) to have them tested and looked at (and I have to pay to have them fixed).

The Antec comes with a 3 year warranty. Hopefully I wont have to use it.

Problem solved. New Antec PSU fixed it, but I also have a nice new BFG6800GToc to boot.

Thanx all of you who stuck with me to see this fixed.

-R
 
i dont know why anyone said PSU first off... if the HD fucks up, then a different one does the same... its a shit PSU
 
Falls Included said:
i dont know why anyone said PSU first off... if the HD fucks up, then a different one does the same... its a shit PSU
Click to expand...

I was not aware a bad psu could cause HD miss-writes... Good to know.

~Adam
 
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