System resource hog!

[Satch]

Something is causing 50 to 55% CPU usage with no applications open and slowing my PC down hugely

Not the anti virus nor anything I can find. Anybody know of a decent utility that show precisely what is going on in terms of things using system resources?

 

[Dieselman]

I take it you've checked task manager?

 

[Satch]

I take it you've checked task manager?

Yes indeed but of little help. The "System" application is chuntering away using loads of CPU but very little memory.

 

[idouglas@sandiw]

Don't know if this will help. Should be worth a look at the demo download.

http://www.findapp.com/fMgmt/PDetails.aspx?PID=7708

 

[Satch]

Don't know if this will help. Should be worth a look at the demo download.

http://www.findapp.com/fMgmt/PDetails.aspx?PID=7708

That is a very useful utility!

The problem was still not clear to me but something was going round in circles trying to run itself. 20 minutes on the phone to my mate Phil, IT Sage of EC2, revealed that what was looping was the hellspawn offspring of an union between Symantec and Microsoft.

Did not follow it all but in broad terms Microsoft have changed the encryption for Microsoft Update so it is Vista compliant and I had done that auto update. But some XP installations do not like it so you have to use the option in the Microsoft site update page to change it back to the old Windows Update.

But then something in the system still does not wholly match up with expectations of Symantec products issued before January 2007, which thinks you have an invalid Windows XP install. So you have to run FixWinXpCrypto.bat from the Symantec site.

Then it turns out that older Norton products still do not fare well these days so downloaded the Symantec uninstall tool and out went the original 2004 version. Still had one install left on a Norton Internet Security 2007 package and in it went.

Glory be, all is well. But I hope those collectively responsible in Symantec and Microsoft roast in the hottest fires of Hell!

Slight downside is that SpyBot is incompatible with Norton 2007. But SpyWare Doctor is and having loaded that in (cost a few $ but worth it) found 39 Spyware problems lurking that SpyBot had missed.

Ah, technology!

 

[br1anstorm]

Something is causing 50 to 55% CPU usage with no applications open and slowing my PC down hugely

Not the anti virus nor anything I can find. Anybody know of a decent utility that show precisely what is going on in terms of things using system resources?

Satch... I'm no computer expert but I've been suffering similar problems. Is your slowdown all the time, or just for a period after startup? There are several downloadable apps which will help you to see in more detail than Task Manager what is running after startup to hog the CPU. You may find you have two different issues:

i) Norton (Symantec) antivirus programmes are notorious resource hogs and will slow down any computer. Frankly I wouldn't give them house room for that reason. There are other AV programmes, free and paid-for, which protect just as well but don't take up so much space. But once you have Norton, it is a bugger to remove cleanly (I think you have to download a special uninstall tool rather than use Add/Remove programs).

ii) Microsoft have recently modded the Windows Auto Update application so that even if you turn it off or set it to 'Custom' so that you can select and download updates when you choose, it still runs each time you start up - and this slows down your system for the first 3-5 minutes. Task Manager shows the CPU at 100%, and the processes are wuauclt.exe (the update app) which apparently uses svchost.exe (which has to run all the time) to connect to the Microsoft site....

There are some computer advice sites which explain all this in more tech-y terms. But I'll shut up and make way for others who are more expert!

Good luck

br1anstorm