High CPU usage

[dreamsys]

I seem to have high CPU usage 65 to 100% with all drivers disabled. If I move my mouse around the desktop the CPU usage goes down to 15% or less. I have notice this with several different systems and multiple Operating systems. My thought is that it is a piece of hardware so I have pulled all cards except Video and still have the same results and it seems to be only in systems that run IDE. I have several SCSI and do not have this problem. Anyone have any ideas or some software that can trace down this kind of problem?

[Praetorian]

Only happens with IDE huh. Have you tried using a different motherboard or HDD? I'm no expert but it could be a bad IDE controler on the board you're using (since SCSI works fine) or just a problem with the HDD.

Edit- Post your system specs.

[dreamsys]

These are integrated ide controllers on brand new boards and I have even disabled the onboard and used a Promise card in a PCI slot and have the same results. I am a system builder and have been seeing this in the last 6 to 8 months more so and it seems to be with newer style boards K7 MB's

[Mr.Goodbytes]

This is all happening under normal operation of your computer? Or only when you do specific things? You are using the latest chipset drivers and IDE controller drivers when using the Promise card right? Is this the same HDD you're taking from system to system and getting these results?

[dreamsys]

Yes this is with the latest drivers and with any hard drive I usually use IBM GXP sreies or Seagate Barracuda 4 or WD and I have tried with different drives.

[Explorer]

Well, that was an interesting observation so I checked my system with System Monitor. Lo and behold, with the computer just sitting there, CPU usage is at 80% spiking to 100% for a second every 20 seconds.

I disabled Norton Anti-Virus Auto Protect, no change. Shut down Zone Alarm, no change. Disable Task Scheduler, no change. Norton still has a couple of things running in the Close Programs Dialog box and Internet Explorer is running of course. And, like yourself, moving the mouse actually causes CPU usage to go down, not up as I would expect. Typing from the keyboard seems to have no effect though.

I've got an older (2 years) A-Bit BX6-II motherboard, Pentium III 700, 128 Mb RAM so it doesn't appear to be only a newer or Athlon motherboard phenonomen but I suspect it may have something to do with Windows (98SE in my case) monitoring something or other for God knows what reason.

[CrashMan79]

I'm running an Athlon system with Win98SE and about oh... 17 background tasks with 256MB RAM... The background tasks include resource monitor and RAMPage (memory "free-er" or whatever you like to call it) and I'm online running Callwave, ICQ, and WeatherBug... I'm running Distributed.net client, and when I pause the client and check my CPU utilization, I see it drop from 100% (from the d.net client) to 3%... up to 18% when I move the mouse.

Three things come to mind...
1. Type of video card (maker, chipset, bus type, etc..)
2. Type of mouse... old style COM interface? PS/2 style? USB?
3. Driver versions for video card AND mouse (okay, so maybe 4 things came to mind...)

I *think* that the root of your problem lies in those 3 (or 4) things somewhere.

Hope this helps,
CrashMan79

[CrashMan79]

FIND WinTop (kernel toy for Win9x) from anywhere you possibly can...
Install it, and run it...
It can and will break down the individual processes running on your system so you can isolate the process (or processes) that are using so much CPU time.

--- Added ---
It might be a program (or programs) that you don't even know are running. Close programs dialog can be fooled into not showing if the coder is good at what he/she does... But nothing as far as I know can hide from WinTop.
--- Added ---

Can't believe I didn't think of that in the first post.
CrashMan79

[AzKidd69]

you can get wintop here (http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/WUToys/W95KernelToy/Default.asp) if this link doesn't work try doing a search for it from www.google.com

[dreamsys]

I have 3 Systems...

System 1. Tyan 2380, AMD Slot A 950 Mhz, Alpha P7125 w/dual sunnon 34 cfm fans, 384 Mb PC133, Asus 6800 deluxe 32 Mb DDR, Adaptec 29160 U160, 2 Cheetah 15k 18 Gb, SCSI Orb Drive, Plextor UltraPlexWide CD-Rom, SCSI PlexWriter 12/4/32, SCSI Toshiba 12x DVD, SB Live, Sigma Designs HollywoodPlus Mpeg Decoder, DLink DFE-530Tx+ 10/100, Lian Li PC70 Full Tower, Enermax 531 Watt PS running Win 2k Pro and this system run fantastic and always has from inception.

System 2. Tyan 2390b, 950 Mhz Athlon Socket A, Vantek CCK-6035 w/delta fan, 256 Mb PC133, CardExPert GeForce 2 MX 32 Mb, IBM GXP 30 Gb ATA/100, Pioneer 16x DVD, PlexWriter 16/10/40, SB Live Value, Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus MPeg Decoder, DLink DFE-530Tx+ 10/100, Mid tower, Sparkle 300 watt PS running WinME. I originally had Win2k Pro and had this problem so I used Task Manager and eliminated almost all process and still had high CPU usage so then I removed all but the video and eliminated all drivers and even removed the video drivers and loaded just straight VGA drivers and still had the problem so then I loaded (Clean Install) WinME with basic VIA drivers and nothing but the video card, DVD, HD, 1.44 and still have the same problem. I think I can safely conclude that it is in Hardware as changing the os verified but so system 3 came to be.

System 3. Abit KT7, 850 Mhz DuronSocket A, Thermaltake Volcano II, IBM 15 Gb Dtla 7200k, ATI Expert 2000 Pro, 256 Mb PC133, Toshiba 1212 DVD, teac 1.44. I loaded Win98se and loaded just the AGP driver from VIA 4in1 433 and I have the same high CPU Usage on this system so I then tried a Promise PCI ATA/100 and checked again. No luck same results. So then I tried a Matrox G450 with straight VGA driver with the same results then I tried a Segate Barracudda 4 60 Gb with same results. Seems I'm batting a big fat zero. So then I tried the same only with WinME with the same results. SH!% this is frustrating. Any help would be appreciated.....

[Philip1952]

I just checked this computer for cpu usage. Mine is running at close to 98% all the time also. I shut everything off and rebooted and it still shows the same usage. ( First time I have checked this computer also).
Now I'm wondering if this might be a bug with the newer chipsets. Here is my reason. Bear with me.
I am on a Abit WB6 with a 810E chipset. I am useing windows 98 first edition. My old computer I gave to my girl was a Abit
BE6-2 board with the bx chipset. It did not have this problem. I checked that board a few times over a year period. It never showed any where near 10% idle even on line just setting there. Off line in idle condition was about 5%.
Both computer were configured the same also. Or at least the BE6-2 was when I used it. (Now it has 98SE on it for her). I have the same programs running on this computer I had on the BX board.
I just ran the wintop program. It doesn't show what is takeing all the cycles up. It shows the top icon as idle with 98% in use. Click on the icon and it shows the threads. One thread is doing it. Now how do I find out what this thread is???:confused:
BTW thanks CrashMan I didn't know about that little program.

[Philip1952]

I had this computer setup as a desktop computer. I just reconfigured it to server. The cpu usage is the same for both ways.
Time to do some more home work.

[AzKidd69]

OK from what I have undestood before.. The listin gof idle and the threads associated with it at the top of wintop are basically just reprtoing unused processor cycles... No wthis PC I am on right now runs @ 99% consistently but I KNOW why. I am runnin eccp ( look for threads about it in distributing computing forum ) but without it runnin I am @ only 7% (or less) processor usage. Now mind you with 7% actual processor usage in Wintop it shows idle as using about 93% with 7 threads. So... That's why I beleive the idle threads are reporting 'wasted' processor cycles...

Also maybe i missed the comment being made but what are y'all usin to report processor usage?

[edit] usin win98se with AMD Athlon 1gig and DFI ak74ec mobo.

[dreamsys]

The programs that report CPU usage are many such as MemTurbo, System Monitor, Task Manager, WinTop etc

[CrashMan79]

Yeah, the Idle thread in WinTop is the amount of CPU time spent doing "nothing". They don't actually use time, it's just inactivity...
now if Idle sat at something above 90% consistently, then that's when you need to check the other processes running for high usage. Most programs that track cpu usage don't register an Idle... While most programs tell you 3% usage total, WinTop tells you how much time your processor spends doing absolutely nothing. (Well, almost absolutely... The processor is *never* idle until it's powered off, not even in standby mode. It (or rather the operating system code) is constantly looking for activity in the mouse, keyboard, or running programs... I believe that Idle time is actually a coded loop that "watches" for activity among the hardware devices.

CrashMan79