• Welcome to Overclockers Forums! Join us to reply in threads, receive reduced ads, and to customize your site experience!

Grrr, CPU staying at 100% load

Overclockers is supported by our readers. When you click a link to make a purchase, we may earn a commission. Learn More.

TehGoober

Member
Joined
Jan 7, 2004
I'm fairly sure this is *not* normal. Recently one of my computers has been responding very, very slowly. I've run Ad-Aware, Spybot Search & Destroy, Hijack This, and TrojanHunter. In addition to that, I've run SystemSuite All-in-One (disk checker, reg checker, defrag, virus scan) and I've come up with nothing*. I also ran MemTest86 for over 2 hours with no errors. (2x512MB DDR333 running @ DDR266.)

The CPU is an AMD Athlon XP 1700+ (of the A variety) and isn't OC'd. For the life of me I can't figure out why it's running so dang slow!! I mean, it's where it should be in Sandra but programs are sluggish.

Any ideas? Also, if I run a Windows Repair Install through the XP CD, will I lose any data? I think I'll just need to update it but I'm better off askign first than goign Rambo. Sorry if this is the wrong forum, I wasn't quite sure where I should turn.

*Sometimes when I run this, the computer will reboot itself. I was getting a really low 3.3V (while playing a game) and it made the Asus Probe software start beeping but I swapped out the PSU and I'm not doing anything to stress the system. The computer was sluggish for days before I got the warning beeps anyhow. I've run CHKDSK /f also...

P.S. I've been told errors have popped up at various times, although I don't know exactly what the operation was that was taking place.

Win32 Services
Error Signature
szAppName: szAppVer: 0.0.0.0 szModName: unknown szModVer. 0.0.0.0 offset 00000000

Technical Information
C:\DOCUME~1\Family\LOCALS~1\Temp\WER16.tmp.dir00\svchost.exe.mdmp

C:\DOCUME~1\Family\~LOCALS~1\Temp\WER16.tmp.dir00\appcompat.txt

SVCHOST.EXE - Application Error
The instruction at "0x7785b2ab" referenced memory at "0x00000020". The memory could not be "read".
 
Run the task manager, and see what is your CPU usage, if its really at 100%, then find the program in the Process tab that is using 98-99% of the CPU, kill the process.
 
edit: Maybe if I had looked a little closer... dx7ew.exe had 97 under the CPU usage. >_< I have absolutely no clue what that is but I've disabled it in startup and hopefully that will fix my problems. It's always the simple things. :) Thanks

I'd thought to just kill the processes but that doesn't explain why it's running slowly. That is to say, no new programs have been installed (and in fact, some have been made to *not* run) between the time it was running wonderfully and now, when it isn't running so wonderfully. I'm going to go try some more things though.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Last edited:
It seems to have done so. Only time with tell though. :)

I have no clue where that came from. Nothing picked it up but it doesn't seem to be hurting anything to be closed.
 
Back