CPU Usage High

[Mungovan]

Hi.
I'm using windoes xp home edition on my laptop (not this computer) and I've noticed a problem over the past few weeks, it's reallllllly annoying!

I just run one program like word and every ten seconds or so it misses a letter and the mouse stalls for a second. I ran the task manager and looked at the performance chart. Even when nothing is running it goes from 13% up to 90%, then back to 13% then up to 90% again and again every ten seconds or so. It's when it's at 90% that the mouse stalls. I haven't connected it to the network since the summer. It's driving me crazy, an ideas??
Thanks
D

 

[bcastner]

I can give you some things to check, but no magic bullet:

. Many laptops do not handle without work the use of an external mouse. You often need to update the drivers for the native touchpad, pointer stick, etc.. including BIOS updates, then apply the newest possible mouse driver software as well to resolve the issue;

. Make certain there are no remote network shares still defined on your system from your days when connected to the network. Look under the 'My Computer' and 'Network Places' to ensure no dead connections are still defined;

. USB Devices can do this, see the MS KB note:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;819017

. In any case, make sure your USB drivers are perfectly up-to-date:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en;822603

 

[bcastner]

I should not that an antivirus scan, and a malware scan would also be a good idea.

. Do both the Trend Micro and Panda scans from smah's FAQ: faq760-3862

. Download, update from within the programs the definition files, and run:

SpyBot 1.2
AdAware

http://www.spywareinfo.com/downloads.php?cat=sp#det

 

[joetiac]

I had a similar problem on my laptop. One symptom was that it wouldn't let Norton anti virus run or update. Nor would it let Norton firewall run.

It was win2k pro. The anti-virus, firewall, and updates would run in the "safe mode". Then 4 intrusions were found and removed/quarentined.

4 items detected:
Quarantined:
mwincft32.exe
winhlpp32.exe

Backed up:
pow.exe
stcloader.exe

The problem seemed to begin when something got into the system and created a multitude of pop-up's. Finally that quit, but something was running svchost.exe at near 100%. Anyhow after the new Norton finished, the problem went away.

Cheers, Joe