Vista is slow/unresponsive with heavy cpu load

[Laser2150]

Basically topic describes it, Everything was fine on my computer till about 2 days ago, when everything became sluggish. My processors load is always at 50%, and the screen hiccups, and it just feels like is having trouble.

when you control+alt+delete instead of fading into the windows thing, it goes totally dark, then it flashes, then after selection something, goes dark again.

startup is slow also....

Safemode is fine, I've reformatted and it worked great, until I install a windows update, then it goes back to the problem. I'm not sure if I don't update I won't get the same results.

I'm on a custom built rig:
e8400 3.0 ghz Dual Core
9800GTX 512mb
2 G Skill RAM
Gigabyte P35-DS3R

 

[notherdude]

hmmm . . maybe likely a driver issue. You have a fresh install working fine, safe mode fine, and then an update messes things up.

First I'd go to task manager and see what app or process using all that CPU.

I'd look at what exactly gets updated - just windows files or is it also a driver or two? I'd back out of the updates one by one by uninstalling them.

go to 'windows update' and view the update history, from there you can go to 'installed updates' and remove them individually.

Another option for driver issues is to just go and DL the latest drivers for everything directly from mfg sites. You of course should do this anyway and see if that fixes the problem, probably before fooling with the updates.

I'd also try running without A/V software for a short time to see if that's

 

[Laser2150]

Well heres the funny thing.

In task manager, I'll be at a 50% load, but system idle will be at 90, and nothing else will be above 4.

I found after installing an nvidia driver, that could be my problem, but I'm unsure still. I'm starting to think all drivers or updates

After uninstalling said nvidia driver, things have returned to normal. I'm about to install an older version that I know worked, But im worried my 9800GTX may be bad now.

 

[Laser2150]

I've tried other nvidia drivers, and I still get the same results. so its down to the motherboard, or the video card.

ironically I can't get windows update to download any updates now.