Suspected Processor Usage Spike and Lag Problems

[Citizen Swooboo]

Hello.  I am having issues with my computer lagging for anything from 90 seconds to say maybe 8 minutes; and these periods of lag happen as often as every 12 minutes to say every 40 minutes.  Needless to say it is very aggravating to web browse, or play a game, or listen to music and have some 5 minute interruption occur.  By interruption / lag I mean my programs all become unresponsive: music stops playing, I cannot minimize a window, etc.

Now this lag will occur whether I am playing a resource-hogging game like Simcity, or whether I am simply browsing the file system.

Now what is most unusual about all this, is that my computer was running fine, very fast, almost never any hiccups for the few years that I've owned this machine.  Due to malware issues I had to reformat my hard drive.  I then got the latest drivers from AMD, ASUS, NVIDIA.  I did my Windows Updates in full including SP 3, got DirectX, Java, all that good necessary stuff.  Reinstalled firewall and antivirus as well.  And then... I started having these lag issues.  After a complete reformat I started having these problems when all I did was get my updates and drivers.  I don't understand what the source could be when I have pretty much a fresh slate, and before the reformat, even with the malware, I did not have the lagging issues.

The only reason I suspect this of being processor issue is because, when the computer lags, I ctrl+alt+del, so when the Task Manager window pops up I know my computer has stopped lagging and I can get back to what I was doing.  And there I see the only evidence: on the Performance tab, there is always a spike showing that there was just 100% CPU usage on the History graphic.  The available physical memory is more than enough, also nothing near total usage for Commit Charge, almost no Paged Memory being used.  When I searched the forums here, there was a processor monitor program from sysinternals suggested.  So I used that, and when my computer lagged, I saw none of the processes using up the CPU, just the System Idle Process remaining in th upper 90's.  So it doesn't look like anything running on my computer is "using" it, it just, to my uneducated eye, seems something is wrong with the hardware, like , only a fraction of the CPU is being utilized.

Of course I also did scans for malware and viruses and used the other maintenance tools by microsoft and CC cleaner and so on.  And checked the drive for errors and defrag.  Also I tried disabling the antivirus and firewall.  Even though most of that should not been necessary considering I just reformatted.  Ok let me look up my stats.

WinXP Home
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dualcore 4200+ 2211MHz
ASUS M2N4 NFORCE SLI board
2046 MB DDR2 667 SDRAM

Ok, let me reread and see if I am missing anything.  Alright.  I really thought it was a driver issue, so I tried uninstalling and reinstalling those.  I use AMD's recommended utilities as well, Cool & Quiet as well as the Dualcore Optimizer.  It has been a month or so now, and after scouring the web trying lots of things I am about to give up and take it to a shop.  But I figured maybe someone can help me.  Any ideas?  I appreciate your time.

[spikedfox]

Whenever I press alt-ctrl-del on any computer it always shows a quick 60%-100% peak at the very beginning the CPU usage history, wether or not the cpu is being stressed or the comp is lagging. My guess is this peak is related with the opening of the Task Manager. Nothing else.
There seems to be definately a process locking up somewhere at random. I'd suggest leaving the task manager open at the process tab while using the computer as usual, in hopes to catch the culprit when the lag occurs. Once you've caught the faulty process, do a quick research on what it is associated with in order to know how to repair it or if you can just kill it.

If you can't find any faulty process, start up in fail-safe mode and see if it still happens. If not, disable all but the necessary startup process on the normal boot. Restart. Add 1 or 2 processes, restart. And so on until you figure out what's causing the trouble.
If the problem still occurs even in fail-safe mode, reseat all components inside the computer, double-check all drivers and their compatibility. Test again.
Deactivate/unplug/uninstall anything not needed for the computer to boot up, and just like the startup processes, try to find out if one could be causing the issue.

[patio]

What are your PC's temps ? ?

[Citizen Swooboo]

Thank-you both for excellent advice.  I thought I would first check the temperature since that is the easiest thing to do and would make sense considering how random my upsets seem.

According to PC Probe, the software which came with my motherboard, my CPU temperature is running at 160 degrees C, which is almost triple what the technical manuals on AMD list as a threshhold temperature.  I can see inside my tower and that the fan is still spinning, so perhaps there is some other issue with the device cooling.

So now I am looking at this website http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Maximum-CPU-Temperature/143/1 to see what I can do.  Perhaps my fans aren't turning quickly enough or there is dust... I don't know just yet.  Let me get another program so I have a second software's opinion on my CPU temperature.



EDIT: Now PC Probe says I am running at a safe 37 degrees.  I couldn't get Motherboard Monitor to function so I am trying to find another program to check the temperature.  I think I am gonna go ahead and dust out the inside anyway like a good maintainer should.  I'll report back later after I've messed around with the temperature, safe mode, and process allowances.

[Quantos]

You might want to change the lithium grease on the processor as well.

[Citizen Swooboo]

If you can't find any faulty process, start up in fail-safe mode and see if it still happens. If not, disable all but the necessary startup process on the normal boot. Restart. Add 1 or 2 processes, restart. And so on until you figure out what's causing the trouble.
If the problem still occurs even in fail-safe mode, reseat all components inside the computer, double-check all drivers and their compatibility. Test again.
Deactivate/unplug/uninstall anything not needed for the computer to boot up, and just like the startup processes, try to find out if one could be causing the issue.

Okay, I have tried a lot of testing.  To me it couldn't possibly be a process, because all I have running in the background are the basic system processes + java quickstart + firewall/antivirus.  Of course I tried disabling those.  When I go into safe mode, I still get the random freezes, at just the same frequency.  This is whether I have networking enabled or not.  It seems any combination of processes I allow is still netting me the same results.  So I then went ahead and took apart the tower and air-dusted each component and put it all back together.  Power, MB, Graphics, CD/DVDROM, fans, HDD, processor, RAM, wireless networking card.  No changes in behavior.

So the only two unnecessary components I have are the disc drive and network card.  If neither of those are causing the problem, I do not have backups to test the other components; so should I then should take it to a shop to be tested/repaired?

[rthompson80819]

Do you have more than one av program running?

BTW, I have task manager running all the time, but minimized.  It puts a bar graph in the notification area that shows CPU usage all the time.

[Citizen Swooboo]

No I don't.  Matter of fact I just have it turned off now; I rarely ever had problems with anything getting through a firewall to need it.  Just better to be cautious.  And yeah I ran all kinds of monitors but really I am not finding any processor spike or memory spike that corresponds with the freezes.  Just minor spikes when new programs open and such but those don't cause slowdowns.

[BC_Programmer]

you could try Process Explorer or Process Monitor. You could leave process monitor open until a hang, and then stop capturing and see if there is anything interesting in the results. (although there will be a <lot> of information to sift through) Process Explorer keeps a short history of CPU usage, undoubtedly whatever is causing the hang will probably be consuming 100% for that time frame (almost certainly a driver file of some sort, which would be represented I believe by either DPCs or the "Hardware interrupts" entries. The little graphs shown in the program will probably show a evident spike, hovering over that location will tell you what program was using the CPU at that time, which could direct further investigations.

Also, do you get the same "pauses" when you are completely disconnected from any network?

[Citizen Swooboo]

I still get the pauses when I am in "Safe Mode without Networking", and since my wireless network card is my only network connection of any kind then I must say yes.

I did experiment with both of those programs in the recent months.  As you mentioned, the process monitor created too much data that I cannot interpret, but the Process Explorer was a very interesting program.  I would leave that program open and wait for any hangups, but it, just like Task manager, would always have the dang System Idle Process at 94-99% usage.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and give Process Explorer another try, I know there are other, uh, windows or modes in that program that I couldn't figure out, probably some other view would show me something I couldn't see before.

[BC_Programmer]

if you're willing to save a Process Monitor trace (File-Save) from a pause and have a place to upload the file (depending on the size) I would like to take a look see. This has piqued my curiousity as it sounds like it could be a very educational investigation .

You could try the following also:

Cool & Quiet as well as the Dualcore Optimizer.

You could try disabling those to see if the issues go away; a quick google says that other people have had hanging issues and that disabling C&Q made the issue go away.

Another thing to try might be to disable all power management options altogether temporarily and see if the issue goes away.

[patio]

According to PC Probe, the software which came with my motherboard, my CPU temperature is running at 160 degrees C, which is almost triple what the technical manuals on AMD list as a threshhold temperature.

I'd address this 1st....You're gonna fry that CPU.

[BC_Programmer]

I'd address this 1st....You're gonna fry that CPU.

Actually, I was thinking myself that must be an misreading; The processor would either shut itself off or set itself on fire if it actually got that hot, and I'm doubtful a temperature that excessive would only cause a few annoying pauses. Also, seems they resolved that particular temp issue:

EDIT: Now PC Probe says I am running at a safe 37 degrees.  I couldn't get Motherboard Monitor to function so I am trying to find another program to check the temperature.  I think I am gonna go ahead and dust out the inside anyway like a good maintainer should.  I'll report back later after I've messed around with the temperature, safe mode, and process allowances.

^Another program to try to get a second (or maybe third) opinion regarding the temps us speedfan). If the temperatures were in fact that high though, I'l think the damage would be a tad more noticable then some annoying pauses- it's quite difficult to say for certain, especially since it seemed to go away on it's own with no actual changes. Possibly a hiccup on the part of the software application.

[patio]

Good catch on the Edit...BC...i missed that.

[Citizen Swooboo]

Yeah I definitely don't run hotter than 45 C.  I dunno why it said 160 the first time, sounded a bit ridiculous.  I did try a number of programs to verify that.

Ok.  I know the Optimizer isn't it because I didn't have that before the pauses, added it, no difference.  Something I forgot to download from AMD.  But I did always have C&Q running so I'll try disabling that.  Haven't had a slowdown yet now that I have Proc Exp running, I'll redownload the Monitor to copy a chunk of text if I don't find something today.