Very High CPU usage..

[Joel Allen]

Hi i have the Gigabyte GA-k8n pro motherboard and the AMD Athlon 64 Processor.... I recently got a new Video card and have it installed and have installed its drivers and such. ((( ATI Radeon HD 2600 pro :::AGP::: )))

NOTE: i have installed the other software that is needed to run this video card.. "EX: Direct X 9.0 or up"

BUT... i cant figure out why my CPU usage is so dang high... just sitting doing nothing the CPU is at about 40-50 % ... The computer just seems to be insanely slow... I NEVER had this problem before i installed the new video card... usually like 2 % CPU usage...

Does anyone have ANY idea as to why this is?? ( and one other thing: i also got a new monitor... that shouldn't matter tho..)

Thanks

 

[saaiello]

ctrl alt delete Open up task manager look in processes and see what program is useing up the processor.

What OS u running?

 

[Joel Allen]

This is it... and its running really slow... And it never used to do this before i got the new video card...

---> Running Windows XP Service pack 3

 

[saaiello]

ok another thing is go to start run and go into msconfig go to the services tab and hide all microsoft services and disable whatever isnt microsoft also another service while you are there that you can disable while you are there is the windows search service disable all that i said and restart and see what happens. Also uncheck all your startup programs too and see how it runs.

 

[werxen]

I already see AVAST. See if you have it on auto scan. That can tear apart old processors...

 

[Joel Allen]

Ok this is after i made the changes..

I was just wondering about that "system idle process" is that supposed to be that high?

--- And im still wondering if it has something to do with the new video card...

Is there such thing as like a load sharing problem where the CPU is trying to do some of the graphic processing instead of the video card?

 

[bql500]

I was just wondering about that "system idle process" is that supposed to be that high?

Mine is usually that high. I think the % for system idle actually shows how much the CPU is NOT used.

From the OPs pic, his CPU is running at about 1%, not the 40-50% as claimed. Maybe it runs at 40-50% at some stage, but not when the pic was taken.

 

[Joel Allen]

Well it says 47 in the Pic and the thing just runs really slow... never used to run slow like this...

I should also say that i reformatted my hard drives and reinstalled windows...

So the computer is pretty much fresh... i guess... If anything shouldn't it be faster!!

 

[mlcloud]

Download process explorer and show us what that shows you:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

 

[Joel Allen]

Well here is the main stuff i get.

Is there something in here the i should look at? or does anything look wrong to you?

 

[crazy359]

run SPYBOT

 

[Joel Allen]

hehe i dont really know what that is or what its for.. could u help me out bit?

 

[JDFan]

Mine is usually that high. I think the % for system idle actually shows how much the CPU is NOT used.

From the OPs pic, his CPU is running at about 1%, not the 40-50% as claimed. Maybe it runs at 40-50% at some stage, but not when the pic was taken.

Actually it is running at 47% and only 1% is being listed so the other 46% is some hidden process - (which is not a good sign as it could well be a virus that is hiding itself !) - though it might also just be windows update installing some updates.

 

[Joel Allen]

well look at that pic a just most recently posted... look at the thing called hardware interrupts... is that the problem???

 

[JDFan]

Looks like it is - there is an old thread about the same problem but it doesn't say whether it was fixed or what fixed it - See here ( http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/262068-28-hardware-interrupts ) - though one poster says that resseting his router seemed to clear the problem for him in XP (so that might be something to try !) - and there is another thread here ( http://www.ozzu.com/mswindows-forum/computer-slows-down-hangs-repeatedly-odd-intervals-t54065.html ) that finds the problem to be with an addin ATA\SATA PCI card that they had installed so it sounds like the problem is usually related to some bad hardware conflict with the system where it gets locked trying to communicate properly and just keeps retrying - have you had any problems with or added any new hardware recently other than the video card ?

Also did you install the AGP version of the drivers for that video card - as it might be a problem with them causing this as well ! ( I know my old 7800GS AGP card had to use old drivers since the newer versions caused problems since they were written for PCI-e cards and the AGP cards had problems running on the newer drivers. (after Nvidia started adding things like the Physx support etc.) - not sure if the same is true for ATI cards but I seem to recall hearing of troubles with AGP cards and drivers from them also !

 

[Joel Allen]

hmm... well i havnt added anything except the video card... and i had ton of trouble getting it got work...! i finally got it to work after like reinstalling that and windows like 5 times (seriously)... so its gotta be that video card... but the card it AGP so wouldnt that mean that all the drivers made for it are also made for AGP??

My brother also talked to the guy at visiontek and he said that i need these three things (besides the driver):

*WinXP SP3
*.NET Framework 2.0 (or higher and ALL servicepacks)
*DirectX 9.0 or higher

And here is the driver that he had me use:

http://support.visiontek.com/drivers/9.7n_XP_driver.html

I have do all that and there is still conflict... so so all that look right to you?

PS: my router has been reset and fully reprogrammed sense ive had this problem... so that must not be the solution

 

[JDFan]

Hmm - seems ATI does have a Hotfix for problems with installing the newest drivers on an AGP card - so you might try downloading and installing it - ( http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/CatalystAGPHotfix.aspx ) and then the newest ATI drivers to see if that might fix things.

 

[Joel Allen]

ok so before i got a head and install this am i supposed to do anything with the current driver i have or just go a head and download and run this hotfix?

 

[popatim]

Its best you uninstall the current drivers. I'm pretty sure you will find an uninstall utility on visionteks website, Sapphire has one, to remove everything installed.

You see the problem is that ATI stopped making AGP cards some time ago and these vendors are basically mounting a PCIe card onto an AGP adapter. Since ATI is out of the AGP business their driver are all for PCIe. You see you will always need to use the 'Hotfix' drivers for your card.

As for SP3, Net2.0, and then the hotfix, - yes that is correct and in the correct order.

 

[Joel Allen]

Thanks ill give it a try tomorrow.. i gotta go to bed.. (cause im just a high school student..) than i post the results...

 

[Joel Allen]

everything is still the same.. i uninstalled the drivers i had than ran the hotfix... it didnt do anything... after doing the hotfix is there something i still have to do??

 

[JDFan]

Did the Hotfix include new drivers or does it merely install something that allows the new driver package to install properly ? - I'm not sure but you might have to install the new driver package after installing the hotfix (I believe the hotfix is just a needed Fix to allow the driver package to install and run rather than it erroring out on trying to install the new drivers)

 

[Joel Allen]

uhh well when it was installing there was a part when it said 'installing graphics display driver'

so um yea i guess it included it... what else could it be?

could the be something physically wrong with the card? like a bad card?