CPU Problem?

[Guest]

So I have been dealing with this problem since I got my computer two years ago where every so often (maybe every two hours or so that I'm logged on) my computer begins to stutter and lock-up intermittently for probably around 2-3 minutes. During the 2-3 minutes the computer is barely responsive, it freezes and unfreezes continually until it eventually goes back to a normal state. I've tested hardware components fairly extensively because the problem has persisted through multiple system installations. I memtested all my RAM individually, got my video card replaced at a point, sent my motherboard back to ASUS for repairs when I thought it was that, used the seatools diagnostic program on my hdds, and just recently applied new thermal paste to my cpu. I have never figured out the problem. Needless to say I'm very frustrated because the computer is nice, but its always had that one very obnoxious problem. I'm putting up this image which shows my cpu activity during the most recent lock-up period. I'm barely running anything, but the thing spikes like crazy. Is there a good chance that it is actually the cpu? I have a first generation i7-920. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[smorizio]

it could be a few simple things. it could be an anit virus program trying to run a drive scan in the background. have you updated the program as newer version of anti virus use less memory and do a better job of back ground scan. same would go for any defrag or scan disk program. I would also try and use msconfig and turn everything off in start up other then your anti virus and see if it a program running in the background. the other issue could be an error with windows power manamnet and your pc or your pc bios sleep feature. try telling windows not to spin the hard drive or turn off the video and see if the error stops if it does turn it back on but change the time and see if you can see if the error happens again.

 

[Guest]

Well, I can see when my ant-virus is running a drive scan so I don't think that's the problem, and I have automatic disk defragging off. Wouldn't it in general be more indicative of a hardware problem than a software one since it has persisted through multiple installations of Windows?