atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Computers & Programming Computers, Software, Accessories cpu usage 100%

I have a dell dimension 4600 with 1g ram winxp pro IE8. I have been getting 100% cpu usage alot recently and I have to restart to clear it.

I have been all over the internet looking for a solution and found the results lacking. Can anyone here help?

You're a little short of explanation of what you
have done to help yourself.

Did you run Malware Bytes or SpyBot software? Do you have antivirus software and not Norton Bloatware?

Have you looked at the task manager to see what is using CPU cycles?

Download this: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

It is essentially a task manager on steroids. It shows more detail than the XP Task Manager provides. It might help you track down the errant process that is using all of the cpu cycles.

You said you are running Internet Explorer 8 with 1 GB of RAM. That is your problem. Add memory. When you run out of physical memory, the system starts switching information back and forth between memory and the hard disk. That is very CPU intensive.

You can confirm this by looking at your Task Manager. Does Commit Charge-Total exceed Physical Memory-Total?

Yes, nothing unusual there as well.

1.5g ram & my commit charge-392950 does not exceed physical memory total-1571824 available-910600 cache-827700.

Butch, thats not quite accurate. All XP systems use virtual memory constantly regardless of the amount of RAM installed. The page file is constantly being used for "least used pages". A pentium 4 with 1 gig of ram will run XP just fine. IPK, when you open your task manager by hitting ctrl-alt-delete, go to the processes tab and click on the CPU heading. This will organize the items based on the percentage of CPU used. Now you should see which service or program is using up the most cycles. Reply with the program name and we can troubleshooot further.

I have to agree. 1 gig of ram is plenty, especially if you allow XP to have a pagefile. Lots of people have more RAM, or want more, but an XP machine just sitting idle is not going to use 100% processor time to page... More like zero percent.

Next step: do exactly what Tito said, so you can identify the offending program or service. If it turns out to be svchost.exe, then your machine is probably "owned."

BTW [slightly off-topic], I have an XP box with 2 gigs, and have the page file turned off completely. Paging is for the birds...

Jim
**************************************************
Speaking from a secure undisclosed location.

I have seen instances where a AV update caused the AV engine to throttle the CPU cycle to 100% (seen with both mcafee, and trendmicro but that's not to say others couldn't do it)

you could try stopping your AV (assuming there is one) if that's it, your CPU cycles should drop like a stone though depending on how responsive the unit is, you may need to force the PC into safe mode and disable the AV from starting.
Then of course reboot

The question isn't whether 1 gB is sufficient to run XP; it is whether 1 gB is enough to open 5 or 10 or 20 windows in Internet Explorer 8 on XP. In my experience it is not. Yes the problem could be caused by something else hogging the CPU. The way to tell is to use Task Manager or download the Process Explorer recommended above.

I have a pentium 4 with 1 gB of memory. I installed Internet Explorer 8, but the system could not handle it. So I went back to using Internet Explorer 6, which is the version that comes with XP.

It might be interesting to use the minimum virtual memory allowed by XP, which is 2 Mb. If your problem is excess paging, you may not be able to open many browser windows, but your CPU usage will stay low. That means you need more memory.

Hmmm, not sure what you've run into but IE 8's memory usage is great. I just opened 15 IE8 windows on a test pc and it uses a little over 100MB of ram. This was on an ancient 800Mhz XP pc with 256 MB of ram. The computer still ran fine with 15 IE 8 windows open. If IE8 killed your P4 with 1 gig then id be looking at other culprits. The problem here is almost certainly not excess paging. Youve got to remember how the swap file is used. The pages that are not frequently accessed are moved to the page file and the pages you are using are in RAM. So the only time you really see a speed hit is when your accessing a page in the swap file and its moved to RAM. Then every subsequest access is from RAM and not the page file. He still needs to post his usage results so we can further troubleshoot this problem. Without that we can keep guessing all day long.

it's a free country and i still think ie8 is a cpu and memory hog. i never heard of a newer program using less resources. i think the latest firefox is also a cpu and memory hog.

My culprit appears to be ccsvchst.exe which is nav. Taking 97+ of my cpu along with dumprep.exe. which takes the remainder of my cpu. Funny, I did not seem to notice this issue until I did upgrade to ie8 and it got progressivly worse as the monthes went by. Coincidence? The consensus on the net is nav has to go. I will not renew this. I would like opinions on how to uninstall nav & install something like avg free.

Thanx for all the prompt replies!

I have also turned off windows auto updates as well. I read it also causes conflicts with nav.

dumprep is a memory dump. This occurs when a process shuts down improperly. You can kill this and ccsvhost in task manager. If ccsvhost does not want to die, download a free program called Unlocker from download.com. Norton is uninstalled like any other program using add/remove in control panel. To do an extra thorough cleanup, use the free Revo Uninstaller from revouninstaller.com. Be sure to remove anything that says Norton, Symantec or Live Update.

I agree that McAfee and Norton AV are both horrible bloatware with superior marketing. But then again so is Windows!

You should be able to go into your control panel then add remove programs and uninstall your norton product. You can get AVG from free.grisoft.com I also like Microsoft's Security Essentials. If you have trouble uninstalling Norton then use the removal tool but try add remove programs first.

https://www.symantec.com/norton/sup...amp;docurl=20080710133834EN&ln=en_US

Thank you all.

Are you positive that ccsvchst.exe was the exact name of the process? What is the location of this file? I've seen malware cloak itself as a supposedly clean/good system file before. I recommend running several antivirus products on your computer to be safe.
https://housecall.trendmicro.com
https://www.eset.com/online-scanner
https://www.bitdefender.com/scanner/online/free.html
https://www.kaspersky.com/virusscanner

Could also upload that file to www.virustotal.com which may see if it is a virus.

may be malicious code or may be crummy code. result is same: a memory leak leading to excess paging/cpu cycles. imho symantec=leaky software with slick ads. Pull it out.

Here's a simple test - Boot into Safe Mode.

* Shutdown, count to 10, and power on.
* Immediately start tapping the F8 key. Ignore any beeps. If you see a "keyboard error" Press F1 (or some other key to continue) .. press that key to continue.
* The Windows Advanced Options Menu should appear.
* Select Safe mode (not the one with command prompt or networking). Press Enter.

In safe mode, after you log in, see if your CPU is still maxed out. You can try running Malwarebytes or Microsoft Security Essentials (you cant update either of the two programs, but they will scan)

Restarting the PC always clears it so booting in safe mode would do the same I think. I have already run defrag, malewarebbytes, etc...

the process you mentioned is from Norton 360 or similar. The best idea would be to remove the Norton and install a free antivirus/malware like Microsoft Security Essentials, AVG Free, Avast etc.

If you really insist on keeping the Norton, download and reinstall the latest version from the Symantec web site using your account login.

Tonite I am removing Microsoft Security Essentials from my list of recommended free antivirus/malware programs. I have been using it for about a month, and it is very chatty. Also you have to run Windows Genuine Advantage AGAIN when you install Security Essentials, which I find insulting. How many times must we prove to Bill Gates that WE ARE NOT CROOKS.

But the worst part happened tonite. Microsoft Security Essentials decided that some perfectly innocent programs were in fact Trojans. Security Essentials would not let me do anything on my computer until I removed these programs. To top it off, Security Essentials could not remove them itself. And Security Essentials prevented me from uninstalling it at this point. In other words, it made my computer unusable. I am a computer pro and it took me several hours to fix this mess.

The last thing i need is to get a call from a client telling me he can't do a thing with his computer, and he needs me to come fix it IMMEDIATELY.

My AV recommendation at this time is AVG Free. It does not require email registration, is not chatty, and installs well. Several years ago, I didn't like AVG Free because it did not handle large attachments well. But I have not had any problems with AVG over the past year.

Found this on the net here:

https://www.computing.net/answers/windows-xp/problems-with-ccsvchstexe/167291.html

Quoting:
The main issue with ccSvchst is that it works with the Phishing filter in IExplorer. If you have IE7.0 (could be other versions but I have not tested those)when a page loads it is scanned by the filter. Many normal pages scan in a few seconds, ones with forms and such may take a minute or two while others can take constant scaning as ccSvchst never sees the end of the page thus it continues to scan and runs the cpu usage to 100% and keeps it there. To stop this you have to stop the NAV Phishing filter. Go to TOOLS,INTERNET OPTIONS,ADVANCED,and select the RESET button at the bottom. This will reset all cookies and such but more important to you is it removes the Phishing filter from IE. reload IE and it should run normally. This looks to leave ccSvcHst.exe alone and able to service the other NAV applications in the 360 program. It is my hope that they patch the mess, but for now you have a temp fix. Oh yes, forget the part of the ADVANCED section that should allow you to turn off the filter. This looks to work for one ot two boots if at all as the repair feature turns it back on. If you get an engine Error the filter is off but from my testing it will not stay off for long if it ever goes off at all.

End quoting...

Personal rant: Norton is horrid. Consider Microsoft Security Essentials, which is free.
Also, consider switching to google chrome, or firefox (yes, it is also a cpu & memory hog) to lessen the chances of being exploited by a malicios page / script / etc.

Have a day!
Tod.

Butch Cassidy,

Ouch. I do understand your frustration. I've had MSE flag VNC as a trojan/malware. You have to chose not to clean, but to tell it to ignore.It is a PITA.

Upgraded Norton to v4. My issue seems to have cleared.

Thanx to all!