CPU Usage fluctuating between 0,50 and 100% (1 Viewer)

[billsbirding]

Hi,

Was just browsing on Internet Explorer a few minutes ago, between BirdForum and my blog (in my signature). I also had two Picnik.com tabs open (which is quite a big website and takes long to load) and had Spotify on in the background.

The computer seemingly froze and took a very long time to load my blog when I tried to open it, and because it was taking so long I tried to open Task Manager. For some reason it just came up as the icon (black and green grid with the green bar indicating CPU usage) in the bottom corner and I can't seem to open the actual window. Thats where it starts to get weird...

The green bar icon in the bottom right was/and is currently fluctuating extremely fast between 0%, 50% and 100% (!?) CPU usage (as shown in the 3 print screen attachments I have just taken). It's doing it so fast the green bar (which is usually just slowly moving between the usage levels) is literally just flashing the 3 levels... something I've never seen before.

The computer is now running very slow. I haven't tried restarting the computer yet, and I last ran a virus scan (BT NetProtect Plus full scan) last night.

Anyone have a clue whats going? I'm about to give this laptop a date with the garden pation below me, so any help would be much appreciated!

Ironic... Task Manager playing up

Cheers,

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

I'm about to give this laptop a date with the garden pation below me, so any help would be much appreciated!

Don't forget to open the windows/French doors before you pick up the PC and careful you don't trip over the cables.



Is TaskMan showing correctly yet? If so, can you attach screenshots from the 2nd, 3rd and 4th tabs, please?

I suspect it might be Flash or Java bugging out - either may be malware related, it only takes 1 little spiked advert ...

 

[billsbirding]

Don't forget to open the windows/French doors before you pick up the PC and careful you don't trip over the cables.

I can't open the window! The computers crashed

In all seriousness though, thanks for replying Andrew. I still can't open Task Manager (its just showing as the toolbar icon, and is still flashing like mad) so I can't get any screen shots of what is actually going on with it all. I haven't restarted the laptop yet, should I try this?

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Ok Bill, try to shut it down with a single press on the on/off button on the laptop before resorting to holding it down to force it off.

It might be best if you restarted it without an internet connection - turn off your router?, before restarting it. If, on restart, there's anything odd or suspicious happening, turn it off again, restart your router then start the laptop in Safe Mode with networking - tapping the F8 and F5 keys should get you the correct menu for this option.

Once you're in Safe Mode and connected again, run any scans you can and let me know what's happening.

 

[billsbirding]

Hi again Andrew. I told my dad about it and he just restarted the computer without going into Safe Mode. CPU usage for the first couple of minutes after restarting was very high and I didn't even have anything open, but now it has gone right back down as I type this and is back to normal. I don't have time to run a McAfee scan tonight, unless I leave the laptop on all night, which with all this rubbish going on I don't really want to do, but I will do a scan tomorrow and report back to you.

Could the muck up possibly be to do with the amount of space I have used up on the laptop? There is quite a lot of stuff on the computer, and what with lots of coursework to do for college, I am using it quite a lot.

Here are the screen shots you asked for now the computer is restarted...

#1 shows shows the processes displayed on the Task Manager.
#2 shows the services tab
#3 shows the performance tab with no windows open
#4 shows the performance tab with 2 windows open

I've added a last screen shot showing the hard disk drives. I've noticed the C Drive is getting pretty full...

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Ok, yes, your hard drive is way too full, less than 25% free means that it will have a serious impact on the performance of the laptop. CCleaner slim will clear out some of the rubbish that's been accumulated, just open CCleaner and click 'Run Cleaner' on the bottom right, the default settings should be fine. From Tools > Startup, you can save a text report of the things that are loading with Windows, attach the text file in a zip, please, it'll help us with the next stage.

76 or so processes running at bootup is about 30 more than i like to see, even on Vista . StartupCPL (installs to the Control Panel, start it from the icon there) will allow you to selectively disable 3rd party programs that aren't needed at boot.

On the Services tab of TaskMan, clicking on Status on the top line should enable you to list the Running Services at the top, another screenshot showing that would be good

You can free up some space by moving your Documents folder to the Data partition, create a new folder called Billy (or whatever) in E:, right-click Documents > Properties > Location > Move and follow the wizard to move your documents folder over to Billy in the Data drive.

Once that's done, a defrag of your C: will help pull your files together and improve performance, I like Puran Defrag.

 

[billsbirding]

Thanks for your help Andrew. I ran a McAfee full scan yesterday and the only item detected was 1 tracking cookie, which was quickly 'fixed'. Could that tracking cookie have been the culprit?

I haven't had any difficultly since, and am currently in the process of uninstalling some programs that I have no need for, to free up some space. If your still interested, here are 2 printscreens of some of the things running in the 'Services' section.

Thanks again.

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

No, tracking cookies are pretty harmless, many malware scanners include them just to boost thier apparent 'efficiency'.

Something's happening on your PC though, the Windows Error Reporting service (WerSvc) is running, I don't think that would run unless there's been an error picked up somewhere.

How much free space do you have, Bill?

 

[billsbirding]

Well the free space on C: seems to be changing by itself every so often. The 2 attachents show how the free space on C: changed in around 10 minutes without me intentionally doing anything...

#1 shows the free space at 11:54am as 4.84 GB (out of 55.6 GB), and #2 shows the free space at 12:02pm, having significantly increased to 5.91 GB free! Is it normal for the free space to fluctuate by itself like this? As I write this, the free space has gone down to 5.80 GB.

Would be interested to learn a bit more of what Windows Error Reporting service is? What kind of errors does it report?

Sorry for my very noobie questions!

 

[The Actor]

That's not much space TBH. At a guess I would say that windows is looking for a bit of space to use as virtual memory and as there isn't much available it's struggling.

Wait and see what Andrew advises as I'm only having a guess.

 

[Andrew Rowlands]

Fluctuating free space might be down to McAfee scanning or other programs you have running, difficult to tell when we can't see Taskman as well.

WER is supposed to report errors from Windows and upload data to be analysed by MS to provide fixes and improve the 'Windows Experience'.

What it actually does is anyone's guess. I cleaned up a Vista laptop a couple of weeks ago that held 1.2GB of data stored by the Error Reporting service - I think it's a ploy to fill your drive full of crud so you have to go and buy a new PC

This is what I'd do first to clean it up:

Ok, yes, your hard drive is way too full, less than 25% free means that it will have a serious impact on the performance of the laptop. CCleaner slim will clear out some of the rubbish that's been accumulated, just open CCleaner and click 'Run Cleaner' on the bottom right, the default settings should be fine. From Tools > Startup, you can save a text report of the things that are loading with Windows, attach the text file in a zip, please, it'll help us with the next stage.

76 or so processes running at bootup is about 30 more than i like to see, even on Vista . StartupCPL (installs to the Control Panel, start it from the icon there) will allow you to selectively disable 3rd party programs that aren't needed at boot.

You can free up some space by moving your Documents folder to the Data partition, create a new folder called Billy (or whatever) in E:, right-click Documents > Properties > Location > Move and follow the wizard to move your documents folder over to Billy in the Data drive.

Once that's done, a defrag of your C: will help pull your files together and improve performance, I like Puran Defrag.

 

[billsbirding]

Fluctuating free space might be down to McAfee scanning or other programs you have running, difficult to tell when we can't see Taskman as well.

WER is supposed to report errors from Windows and upload data to be analysed by MS to provide fixes and improve the 'Windows Experience'.

What it actually does is anyone's guess. I cleaned up a Vista laptop a couple of weeks ago that held 1.2GB of data stored by the Error Reporting service - I think it's a ploy to fill your drive full of crud so you have to go and buy a new PC

This is what I'd do first to clean it up:

Thanks again, Andrew. I'll definitly do what you have suggested to clean up the drive. I'm an enthusiastic photographer and I've just realised that 'My Pictures' alone holds 11.9 GB of photos on it (compared to only 500MB in my 'Documents') so I'll certainly sort this out. Prehaps this would be a good file to move over to the E: drive. What I don't get about E: is why it doesn't distribute the memory between it and C: drive- which is almost full- when E: has nothing on it!

Luckily, the laptop is due for a health check with PC World any day now, so I'll make sure I get any more problems looked at then.

Thanks again mate :t:

 

[njlarsen]

Quote: "What I don't get about E: is why it doesn't distribute the memory between it and C: drive- which is almost full- when E: has nothing on it!"

Because a computer is not intelligent, it is just doing what it has been told to do ...

Niels