CPU jumps to 100%

[Andeh13]

I own a Dell studio 17, with dual core, 3gb RAM etc. iv had it running windows 7 64bit for a couple of months now and havnt had any major problems until now.

For no apparent reason the last couple of days its been driving me mad. Recently its just been having really random slow downs, i cant tell if its program related or not as nothing seems to trigger it off. This evening its gotten notably worse, any mention of clicking on the taskbar will cause the CPU to jump to 100% and windows explorer crashes. As i said, this seems to be the only fool proof way of replicating it on a regular basis.

As far as i can tell iv not installed anything in the last few days which could have triggered this. The only program iv installed is batterybar and iv removed that now.

Aside from this the only real programs iv got on there are a couple of engineering ones, ms office and the standard windows 7 software.


Has anyone ever gone through something like this before? Or have any ways to sort it out? Iv got updates etc all enabled, AVG running and i am very carefull with what i download etc.


thanks guy
(excuse typing, posted this via phone after explorer crashed twice)

[Terbinator]

My laptop (C2D T5500/1.66GHz) did the same as yours, 100% usage sporadically, before refusing to boot after i installed Zune, however before it decided to die on me my bios offered no EIST settings - check your BIOS and see if you can turn Speed-Step or other power saving features on ?

[Indieboi918]

No, idea if this is causing your problem but i have found that a PC can really slow down if you don't de-fragment it at least once in a while.
As i said this may be completely wrong but try defragging your system, i know it has helped speed up my PC a few times

[aidanjt]

Rebuild your systems index. If the problem returns, check for any malformed media files, or alternatively remove those directories from your libraries. There's threads along this vein in the Operating Systems subforum.

[Terbinator]

If all else fails then a good old re-installation

[Flash477]

Do you run any gadgets? Some of those can be rather greedy at times

[Sippin40oz]

If all else fails then a good old re-installation

+1 i had exactly the same problem with my pc a while back. Fresh copy of windows sorted the problem completely so it might be a virus or a rogue program not working properly.

[TS || Slick]

can you open task manager and check what process is jumping to 100% control + shift + esc then click on the task bar see what jumps, ive seen windows do this before usually a sysfader error, not sure if windows 7 has the same problem. Only way to be sure is a reinstall, even if its a pain in the .