CPU Idle at 50%

[esa193]

if you cant get it
dual boot your os
see if that fixes it (that way if it doesn't you don't have to reformat and if it is the issue back up your data and erase the other copy of xp or vista)

 

[FlightSimBoy]

A True Folder, that is a great program you posted. It doesn't show anything under explorer.exe however.

I also instaled SP1 during this time. No improvement to the CPU problem, but I noticed some improvement as to how Vista handles.

 

[A True Folder]

Process Explorer is good

Shame it's not telling you anything though

50% is a large chunk of cpu cycles.

It's not one of those silly Vista scheduled tasks or anything like that is it??

I'm going to have to get Vista I think, all this guessing is just plain making it hard to help

lol

 

[FlightSimBoy]

I ctrl+alt+del all of the task scheduler engines. That really improves performance. However, even with those gone, I still idle at 50%. The only thing that seems to fix it is using ctrl+alt+del on explorer.exe, but if I do that, I can't do anything.

 

[FlightSimBoy]

Ok, so, I consulted with a friend of mine about this situation. He told me that certain voltage changes can cause this as well. I was unsure about this, but on a hunch, I plugged a multimeter into a socket. Well, I got some very scary results.

122.8 volts. Spikes to 123.2.

An overvoltage is considered to be 1% above normal. Well, 1% of 120 is 1.2. So, I would say theres something going on thats not a good thing.

Suggestions on this? Anyone know why these voltages are spiking this high?: Could this be why my CPU is going crazy?

EDIT- Now its spiking to 124.3 and I just blew my multimeter. What the hell is going on?

Another edit- (deleted by me) Geomagnetism is not the cause.

 

[FlightSimBoy]

+ Rep to A True Folder for putting up that awesome program. That really helped me.

So, I was messing around with process explorer and decided to peek into the explorer.exe properties list. I found this problem:

NTDLL.DLL!RtlDecodePointer+0X9B was using most of the CPU (50 percent, as stated above)

Sure enough, as soon as I terminated that 'sub-process' my CPU usage went back to normal.

I can't seem to find anything on google about it, but it is linked to a program called TrustedInstaller.exe, which has given me problems before and is not the legit Windows Installer. I need to find this file in whatever directory its in and redo the user privileges so that TrustedInstaller.exe has no rights to access the program.

Any ideas as to why this happened? I'm sure this TrustedInstaller.exe is a virus or something, because it just keeps coming back.

 

[vzfox]

Down load and run Process Explorer, it should tell what is using Explorer.

I had a similar problem recently with 20% cpu usage, it was caused by a hardware interrupt because I had disabled my RAID controller. (I don't use RAID)

I downloaded this program....but i have no idea what i am looking at. I am having similar problems with my pc (constant internet lockups, webpage stalls and other program lockups/stalls). Every time i open Outlook Express 6 or Internet Explorer 7 or any program for that matter, it takes a good 15 seconds for it to even open, much less display anything. Everything I see in Process Explorer shows to be either a Microsoft Corp program or CA (my antivirus/antispyware) program. When opening a program or surfing the net...my cpu usage goes to 100% for a minute or so, then drops back down to a 10% range. Can someone tell me what "process explorer" does and how it works? What do i need to look for?

I have ran CA Antivirus/Antispyware as well as Windows Defender and Malicious Software Removal tools in both normal mode and Safe Mode. No infections of anykind were detected from anything.

ECS Elite Group motherboard K7VTA3 v.8
AMD Athlon XP 2600+ processor
2GB DDR RAM
500 watt Power Supply
256 DDR AGP video card
250 GB HD
Windows XP Home

 

[FlightSimBoy]

Process explorer is like a more detailed version of windows task manager. It is much more powerful, and allows you to terminate single sub-process instead of an entire process.

When you are using process explorer, look for the process that is using the most CPU power. Then, double click on that to see what sub-process is using the most power. If you see something abnormally high, click on it and then click suspend. If the CPU usage decreases, then keep the sub-process suspended until you find a fix for it. If you experience stability issues afterwards, re-enable the sub-process.

 

[vzfox]

I now see what your talking about....and yes, it seems to be a great program. Although, most all my cpu usage is on idle and 13% is on process explorer. Maybe cpu usage isnt my problem....but my pc hasnt always ran so crappy. I have even upgraded some hardware such as, memory and power supply and video card and HD in the past year. I built this pc about 4 or 5 years ago (and yes i know it is getting old/outdated) and it ran absolutely wonderful. Since installing the upgrades, my pc seems to be performing more poorly than before. i know my power supply is pushing more than enough power for what i have and having 2GB of DDR memory should be enough. I have also made sure over the years to discard/uninstall programs and files that i no longer need on a regular basis and keeping cookies and temp files clean every few days.

Just because I built this thing 5 years ago doesnt mean that with all the upgrades I have done to it, that it is outdated an no longer meets standards. My first post to this thread shows what I have, and it should be a decent machine.