Something using up all my CPU?

rocksolid

Bout 5 weeks ago this started happening, i would be on my laptop (HP G61 4GB Ram Celeron Dual Core T3100) working away on the net when id try to watch a video via Facebook/youtube/streaming etc, next thing all my CPU is being used up and the laptop just running like treacle (id either have to close of all programs including the net (firefox i was using) and wait 20mins or so or just shut down and leave for 10mins or more...

After doing a bit a research i turned off hardware acceleration on firefox but it done no good, so i uninstalled firefox and installed google chrome as its supposedly not as heavy on resources as firefox. Chrome was working fine for videos (cpu was up and down like normal) until today. Was trying to streaming a soccer match when CPU went through the roof so had to close off the site i was using...

Anyone any ideas on what is cause it? would it be my graphics cards?

Any help would be appreciated

whizbang

I will presume its windows you are running. Win 7 even?

goto resource monitor, and look first at CPU for programs, then also look at activity and TCP connections in Network.

ZENER

Any chance the fans need to be cleaned out ? Leaving it on a flat surface for that 20 mins then it would allow air around it to cool it down. Do you normally use in on a soft surface or your lap ?

Also check the Reliability Monitor - Control Panel > Action Center > Maintenance > View Reliability History. Or type reliability in to the search field of the Start Menu and click "View Reliability History". This will show you any problems that might have effected your computers performance since it's birth.

Ken

rocksolid

whizbang wrote: »

I will presume its windows you are running. Win 7 even?

goto resource monitor, and look first at CPU for programs, then also look at activity and TCP connections in Network.

Yea windows 7 starter, attached a few picts of the resource manage, have a look and see if you can spot anything out of the ordinary.

ZENER wrote: »

Any chance the fans need to be cleaned out ? Leaving it on a flat surface for that 20 mins then it would allow air around it to cool it down. Do you normally use in on a soft surface or your lap ?

Also check the Reliability Monitor - Control Panel > Action Center > Maintenance > View Reliability History. Or type reliability in to the search field of the Start Menu and click "View Reliability History". This will show you any problems that might have effected your computers performance since it's birth.

Ken

Have the laptop in a vented wedge mat all the time, never use it on my lap and the fan is spotless...checked reliability history but it only shows ups windows errors not associated with performance errors....

rocksolid

icssupport wrote: »

Hi Noel,

I hope you are keeping well and thank you for posting your query above. Further to this, it sounds as though there may be too many services running at one time. Rather than downloading third party software, I would suggest a number of items first. Begin with disabling any unneeded services from the msconfig command. Let me know if this solves your problem but there are other steps I could advise of to speed your laptop up.

Joe
IT Networks & Infrastructure Consultant

Thanks for the reply Joe, its appreciated...

i disable about 4/5 services using msconfig but still no joy, it will stream fine for maybe 5/10 minutes then my cpu will clog up....

Tried yesterday downgrading my flash player as i though that the newest version might have problems but no joy with that either

What else could you suggest i do?

Have you tried Reset browser settings

rocksolid

NoDrama wrote: »

Have you tried Reset browser settings

Yep done that as well, even uninstalled chrome and firefox and reinstalled chrome....

Ok, try html5 on youtube and check if there is an improvement.

Your other option is to use system restore to a point when the system was operating properly.

rocksolid

NoDrama wrote: »

Ok, try html5 on youtube and check if there is an improvement.

Your other option is to use system restore to a point when the system was operating properly.

Ok have set html5 as default, im streaming a soccer match at the moment on a particular website - will that utilise html5???

Of course i cleaned up my computer just after the prob started not thinking it would be so serious and cleaned up my restore points also....

ZENER

Did Windows Reliability Viewer show anything untoward around the time the machine began to misbehave ?

You have several instances of Chrome running according to Task Manager taking a total of over 50% CPU but that still wouldn't cause the treacle effect unless there were a lot of Disk transfers. What does the Disk Usage Pane of Performance Monitor look like ?

I'm also curious to know how you're using the Aero Theme on Windows 7 Starter ?! Is this a hack or the official inclusion by MS ?

Ken

rocksolid

ZENER wrote: »

Did Windows Reliability Viewer show anything untoward around the time the machine began to misbehave ?

You have several instances of Chrome running according to Task Manager taking a total of over 50% CPU but that still wouldn't cause the treacle effect unless there were a lot of Disk transfers. What does the Disk Usage Pane of Performance Monitor look like ?

I'm also curious to know how you're using the Aero Theme on Windows 7 Starter ?! Is this a hack or the official inclusion by MS ?

Ken

95% of the critical errors in reliability viewer over the last 2/3 months are 'explorer stopped working

Thats the way chrome works, by opening 1 tab of chrome it runs 2/3 instances - always been like that but like you said thats not the prob



as far as i can remember Aero theme is official, dont ever remember needing a hack to use utilise it....

rocksolid

icssupport wrote: »

Hi Noel,

Thank you for coming back to me on the above. Further to this, the next steps would be to increase the size of the virtual memory on your host device (usually by x2), then restart the computer. I would also recommend running a corporate cleaning tool to get rid of the "Junk" sitting on top of the OS.

However, I would strongly suggest that you run through the services to disable "non crucial" services as they will impact performance. If you need them, you'll click on them through the GUI.

Let me know if this works for you. Otherwise you can contact me via email to organise a call out

how would i go about changing my virtual memory on my laptop?

I use ccleaner very regularly....

rocksolid

icssupport wrote: »

You'll need to right click my computer, click on advanced then performance then virtual memory. If it is set to 1024 then increase to 2048 etc

seems to be set for 3998mb - would that do?

yawhat!

Is chrome in task manager when it is not even running or appears to be closed? I had performance issues with this before.

CTRL ALT and Delete and end the task. Try booting up chrome again then.

rocksolid

yawhat! wrote: »

Is chrome in task manager when it is not even running or appears to be closed? I had performance issues with this before.

CTRL ALT and Delete and end the task. Try booting up chrome again then.

nope as soon as you close off chrome it disappears from the task manager...

icssupport

You'll have to untick automatically manage and click custom. Then set both initial and maximum to 8192mb

whizbang

Disable SSDP service for a start. Do you have a network drive, or cloud storage running?

There is a lot of TCP connections, seems to be using 7Mbps of network at the time you posted.

Windows live mail ?
Avast AV- can you set it not to update at times when you use the machine most?

rocksolid

whizbang wrote: »

Disable SSDP service for a start. Do you have a network drive, or cloud storage running?

There is a lot of TCP connections, seems to be using 7Mbps of network at the time you posted.

Windows live mail ?
Avast AV- can you set it not to update at times when you use the machine most?

Will try turning off SSDP this evening - dont use cloud storage and have my laptop networked through my smart but dont use it (come to think of it i did get the new smart tv around the same time this problem started happening, could this be the prob?)

I use windows live as my default email handler for my hotmail and gmail account....
Will set avast to update at a certain time when im not using the laptop...

rocksolid

Had to bite the bullet and do a factory reset over the weekend as i couldn't figure out the problem....

My god there was some amount of updates to install...never again, but it has fixed the problem now so it was worth it....