CPU usage out of control

[Wedge]

Not sure why but my PC is doing something while i have no extraneous processes running. Yet i can hear the drive working hard. No AV scan, no defrag, nothing, yet i am seeing this:




another.....



Any ideas? Shall i post a pic of my processes, or sys tray so that you can get an idea of what might be happening? Weird behavior.


edit: a print screen

[qviri]

Go into the Processes tab and sort the list by CPU usage.

[jaganath]

when this happened to me it was caused by malware; run AdAware and SpybotSearchandDestroy.

[Felger Carbon]

when this happened to me it was caused by malware; run AdAware and SpybotSearchandDestroy.

And some folk wonder why I run W98SE with Flash (and other multimedia stuff) not enabled.

[Wedge]

when this happened to me it was caused by malware; run AdAware and SpybotSearchandDestroy.

That's exactly what i was afraid of. Malware scanning for info maybe?

[Wedge]

[peteamer]

What's at the top of the list?


Pete

[floffe]

Click on "CPU" to sort by CPU usage instead of memory, and check the box to show processes from all users too. But yeah, a malware scan would be good too.

[qviri]

And some folk wonder why I run W98SE with Flash (and other multimedia stuff) not enabled.

Count me in among the wondering, because I run Windows 2000 with Flash, Java, and whats-the-buzzword-of-the-day, no firewall, no issues. Frankly I don't see the connection between 98SE and security. Also, Flash isn't responsible for malware infections. AFAIR ActiveX accounts for most of them.

Oh wait, I don't actually have Java. Nobody uses those crappy applets anyway.

[Rusty075]

Turn on the "CPU Time" column on the processes tab, and after the machine has been running like that for a while sort the list by CPU time. Once you get past "System Idle" and "Explorer", etc, you should be able to pick out which process is using the CPU. A quick googling of the process name should turn up what it is, and where it came from.




--and just to add to the the off-topic tangent of this thread: I ran XP for years with no anti-virus, no anti-spamware, and everything turned on and never once had a virus/malware/spyware issue. (I would occasionally run Spybot and Housecall just to check) Its the user that makes a machine secure or unsecure more than it is the OS.--

[kike_1974]

Turn on the "CPU Time" column on the processes tab, and after the machine has been running like that for a while sort the list by CPU time. Once you get past "System Idle" and "Explorer", etc, you should be able to pick out which process is using the CPU. A quick googling of the process name should turn up what it is, and where it came from.

If it is a malware process that continuosly starts and stops he can miss it with this method. Once a process is closed it dissapears from that list and the timer is reset.

I think that it is better to sort it by "CPU" and look at the processes that appear at the top.

[Rusty075]

If it is a malware process that continuosly starts and stops he can miss it with this method. Once a process is closed it dissapears from that list and the timer is reset.

I think that it is better to sort it by "CPU" and look at the processes that appear at the top.

Good point. Well, if it's stopped, you're going to miss it both ways. Judging by the screencap it looks like its stays running, but fluctuates in its CPU usage. I suggested trying it by CPU time because it looked like he missed it with the screen cap above.

Try both...bound it nail it down eventually.

[andyb]

Download and Run this.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysint ... lorer.mspx


Andy

[Wedge]

What's at the top of the list?


Pete

The top of that list is cuteftp pro.

[Wedge]

Click on "CPU" to sort by CPU usage instead of memory, and check the box to show processes from all users too. But yeah, a malware scan would be good too.

[Wedge]

Turn on the "CPU Time" column on the processes tab, and after the machine has been running like that for a while sort the list by CPU time. Once you get past "System Idle" and "Explorer", etc, you should be able to pick out which process is using the CPU. A quick googling of the process name should turn up what it is, and where it came from.

I am back but the CPU is normal now. i.e., I think i am too late to use this method for cracking this mystery.

[Wedge]

Download and Run this.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysint ... lorer.mspx


Andy

Will check this out. Thanks a bunch.

[Wedge]

It's happening again:




It's sending my CPU temps up:

[Rusty075]

avgw.exe is part of your AVG antivirus. It should only run when it is doing its daily virus scan. Check what time you have the daily scan scheduled for. I usually schedule mine for like 3am, when the machine is just idling anyway.

[andyb]

Ive never seen AVG use that much CPU power, there must be something wrong, un-install it and re-install it, but first make sure you dont have 2 lots of AV software they dont like each other, and also check that it is actually scanning files and isnt just locked onto one file.

And use the process viewer and send us a pic of that.


Andy

[jhhoffma]

I used to use AVG Free at my workplace (shhh, don't tell) but switched to Symantec Antivirus (not Norton) because AVG brought every system to a crawl when it would do it's daily scan (even a brand new 3GHz Core2 Duo) and then never speed up again when it was done. AVG used to be really good, now it's just mediocre and there are better free AV tools (like avast). I'd ditch it and find something else.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello,

I stopped using the free version of AVG for this exact reason. Try NOD32 instead -- they have a trial version. It is much "lighter" on the system than any AV I have used, and is well worth the cost.

[JimX]

What andyb wrote.

I use AVG Free on three PCs for years, and I've never seen it use more than 20% CPU when scanning. Usually it is around 10%.

[sjoukew]

I suspect windows update from this behavior. Every time you boot your computer, or it comes out of standby, hibernate etc. it will run windows update to see if there are new updates. This will run every time when the settings are anything else than completely disabled.
On some computers this is a very heavy process as shown. On my C2D you can't even notice it, but on my laptop Pentium M 1,73ghz it is a similar behavior. When I disable windows update this cpu usage is gone
I have also seen this behaviour on completely fresh windows installations, therefore I don't think it is spyware or something else.
Also the indexing service can be such a nuisance. When I put a bunch of files in an indexed directory the indexing server goes mad, especially on slow cpu's this can be irritating.

[Bluefront]

That sure looks like the AVG scanning at work. You can disable the scheduled scanning and updates. I update mine manually once-a-week, and then do a manual scan. I hate unknown processes running whenever they feel like it. Many progs run like this, but can usually be managed if you can figure out what is going on. The worst offender is the auto-defrag that gets installed with XP.

[Wedge]

Still a problem, and it isn't AVG at all.

[Wedge]

This is on a P4 1.3GHz w/ 400MHz FSB (yes, these things still work).

So, believe me, this is making a big impact on how well my PC performs routine things like opening an application or even just opening the web browser.

sjoukew mentioned the indexing service ....i'm wondering if that could be the cause....

[jaganath]

you may have to try a clean install of windows at this point. have you got automatic updates turned on?

[Wedge]

No i never turn automatic updates on (rather, i disable it since MS defaults it to on, IIRC). But i'm thinking you are right about trying a new install. Just wanted to exhaust other options first.

[Wedge]

It has gone back to normal: