100% CPU Utilization

I get a 100% CPU utilization on my laptop for a last few days and the laptop does not allow me to do any work as it performs extremely slow. I think it has some spyware issue probably but not sure as the problem is that it does not allow me to do any work.

Help please.
-Nilesh

 

Did you already scan your pc with anti-spywares, anti-virus and anti-rootkits?

Maybe you have some real-time system monitors that are always running everytime your pc starts. Some real-time spyware monitor eats up a huge amount of RAM and cpu, also some hips and firewalls.

Try to disable them, use autorun from sysinternals.com or use the start-up manager of TuneUp Utilities 2006. TuneUp Utilities 2006 also offers suggestions to tweak your pc to enable it to run more better, it analyze the system and its up to you to do the rest.

 

THanks fpr ypur reply

Unfortunately the m/c runs so slow that it takes 45 mts for the desktop to comeup. Not sure how I can then try and install or execute and of the tools suggested by you.

I could however log on using another user account and it worked fine. I executed antivirus etc to cleanup the m/c. Eveything was fine but next day again the same problem cropped up.

- Nilesh

 

You have to specify your operating system, pc speed, RAM memory, system monitors running in real-time (like anti-spywares, firewalls, and anti-virus) you are using. If you are using an older system, low memory ram, and then running modern day programs... surely it can really affects your machine to slow down.

 

Or merge in here: https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=143806

Find out what is eating your CPU: http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html

What is your video card.

Did you update some drivers lately?

Gerard

 

Laptop details are as follws

Laptop: Compaq Presario 1525us purchase 4 years ago
OS: WIndows XP Home edition version 2002 SP2
CPU: Pentium4 2.4GHz
RAM: 512mb
Antivirus: Norton AV 2003 Prof Edition (not upto date)
Firewall & anti-spyware : Zone Alarm Pro (but was disabled for few days and I suspect this is probably the root cause)
Video Card: Not sure what is required here but my Display adaptor is Mobility Radeon 7500 by ATI Tech Inc


I could manage to bring it up in SAFE mode yesterday and it worked fine. I scanned using above antivirus and anti-syware s/w but nothing came out of it. I also uninstalled many unwanted applications.

After this I restarted in normal mode but the same problem came back. Fortunately with much patience I could manage to figure out that apart from other usual processes there were 3 iexplore.exe processes running of which 1 process contributed to 98% CPU utilization.

I tried to kill the process but was alarmed that this might result into loss of data hence thought I need to seek your advise before proceeding in this direction

Should I just search for this file and simply delete the one which is causing this problem ?

 

Request a response please.

Thanks
-Nilesh

 

Just a suggestion to follow this thread

Gerard

 

I have gone thru this thread but I think I have identifed that one instance of
iexplore.exe is taking up 100% CPU.

My questions are
1. Is it normally ok to have multiple instance of iexplore.exe ?
2. Can I just delete the problematic instance of iexplore.exe ?
3. Will deleting this cause me any issues or would the other iexplore.exe instances be sufficient for the normal functioning of system perspective

Thanks
-Nilesh

 

Do you have those three in the msconfig/startup folder?
If they are there and you did not do that by yourself on purpose they shouldn't be there.

Can you kill those processes via Process Explorer

I personally would kill these processes and see what's happening.

iexplore.exe shoud be normally in the folder drive:\Program Files\Internet Explorer only

Gerard

 

If IE is coming up during boot, either you have a dialer hiding somewhere, or some program tries to get to the internet for license verification or worse.

You should have your firewall enabled. Maybe it tells you what address IE is trying to get to and from that, figure out the program that starts up IE. It might simply have an option to get online for updates in which case, you turn it off.

 

I think the problem is solved now.

There was a application ('Select Rebates') lanching itself and connecting to Internet as part of the startup process. I killed the iexplore.exe session, unstalled the program and the system seems to work fine now.

I have also enabled all security measures flrewalls, antivirus etc and hope the same problem does not reoccur

Sincere thanks to all the people for your help

-Nilesh