Drive and CPU usage up to 100% ??? Help please.

I just don't know what has happened to my drive..I'm running Kaspersky 7.0.0.125.

I have my drive split into two partitions. The C drive for the OS and a few pieces of software, and the E drive/partition which is for everything else.
Everything has been running great until today.

I have a folder on my E drive that is suddenly causing me problems I THINK. This folder is 125 Gigs in size, has 41,789 files in 1,780 folders. It's an assortment of music, pictures and videos

When I open this folder my CPU usage goes up pretty high, and then if I try and play a video, the CPU usage (determined by the Task Manager) will approach 80% and in a minute or two hit 100%, and locking up my system. I have no idea what's going on. All I know is I downloaded maybe 2.5 gigs of material into this folder today, and all of a sudden, there's a huge maxing out of my CPU.

Also I have noticed, that avp.exe under the processes tab is approaching 88,000 Kb or more...I have no idea why, without a scan running too. However the increase of the avp.exe is not consistent, right now I'm running an anti virus scan and it's at 45,000kb

Here are some specs from MS Disk Defragmenter
C: Drive 8% total fragmentation, 16% file frag. (29.7 Gig, 10.9 gigs FREE)
E: Drive 2% total frag, 5% file frag (249 Gig, 110 gigs FREE)

Any help would be appreciated..I'm at a loss.

Malware. It appears your system is infested.

Do we have an anti-malware/spyware sub-forum here at OCF?

Download and install the latest version of HijackThis. Run it, "save to log," and post here or in another sub-forum if we have one for security. (I think we do, I just usually cruise the hardware and tweaking areas.)

That's what I was wondering too..I just think it's strange to see this all of a sudden.

I'll get to work on it. I see there's plenty of info and instructions that one must do over at majorgeeks.com in order to remove malware.

I'll keep you posted.

Try disabling thumbnail view by typing the following at the command prompt (Start | Run | Type cmd, and click OK)...

regsvr32 /u shmedia.dll

... and/or run this edit (this edit prevents high CPU usage when browsing AVI files):

Automated: AVI Search Remove (Line 74 - avipurge.vbs)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

Manual Edit: Start | Run | Type regedit, and click OK | Expand the following branch, and delete the default data key (RH pane)...

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT | SystemFileAssociations | .avi | shellex | PropertyHandler

Windows Stops Responding When You Click a Large AVI File in Windows Explorer
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=822430

Thanks I don't believe windows is not responding due to me opening a large avi file. Because previous to the problem, I am easily able to open a file that is 1-2 gigs in size. Also, the system locks up even if the video file is smaller say 100megs in size.

However, I am at the moment checking to see if it is malware. No viruses according to KAVP.

Now, perhaps it is a thumbnail issue, which would suck because I do enjoy using thumbnails to see mini icons of the video content.

I'll check back after malware checking before I make a registry change such as those you mentioned you above..I'm not that advanced w/regard to registry changes and such.

it is not about opening it but by default Xp tries to show a small "thumbnail" of movie files in a folder, this slows things to c crawl.

i would download spybot S&D install and run - try to disable kapersky and go into the folder.. see if it happens, could be kaspersky scanning the files..

under process on task manager what does is say is using the CPU the most?

I have run KAVP - no viruses
Ran Spybot, SuperSpyware, and Malwarebytes > all reported no malware

After I ran SuperSpyware however, Kaspersky now detects the following below

8/27/2008 3:36:33 PM The application C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\ACS\AOLAcsd.exe cannot establish connection with server 205.188.130.216. Please check your internet connection settings. If you have a firewall installed, check that the application avp.exe is allowed internet access.


I see what you mean Guvernment. I guess it sounds hard to believe that 4-10 extra files could bring my system to its knees. I will say this, as the folder has gotten bigger in size, it certainly takes longer to display all the icons. I have also observed that not all the video files are shown as thumbnails. The same is true for the folders, where the folder displayed smaller thumbnails, that is not the case either in some cases.

Explorer is using the memory the most at about 55,500 kb, yet once I closed the folder, the memory usage remained pretty much the same. CPU usage still at 100%

I disabled KAVP, opened the suspect folder, it is currently open now. When it opened the CPU usaged ranged from 2%-36% upon initial opening. I do know that right now, once all the video icons were displayed (not all of them are presented as thumbnails), the CPU usage has reached 100% and remains that way for well over 15 minutes Perhaps it's not malware?


I changed the large folder display from thumbnails, to list. So far, my computer isn't acting up again..I don't know if that was the problem. But maybe you guys were right. I do know that when I had use thumbnails, the hard drive activity was loud and long, but with "List" view chosen, the folder opens and hard drive activity drops significantly and in a shorter amount of time..Which makes sense.

Mayb it's fixed, maybe not time will tell. For now I will sort through the most used files and put them in a different folder.

thumbnails uses alot of resources on XP, has been a known issue from day 1 i recall,

if you dont want the thumbs to show, try what redduc900 suggested.

Just as a comparison i have server 2008 at home, i open my movies folder and switch to large icons (shows the AVI icon, but not a live view or anything) and my CPU usage hit %33 max (i have a q6600 @ 3ghz)

Wow...that is interesting. I happen to LOVE the thumbnails idea. But never heard or knew it that there's a "limitation" on it.

I wonder why it's so CPU intensive, aside from the fact that you are display mini graphics, perhaps it's an indexing issue?

Is this a problem w/Vista, just curious.

thumbnails uses alot of resources on XP

Click to expand...

Turn off indexing on the partition where your images are located. That could speed things up considerably, especially if you frequently ad, move, or remove files.

I haven't found anything that indexing improves. Maybe it was a boon when XP first came out, when hard drives were slower and processors far less powerful.

Split up that folder. Do not put soo many files into one folder. Organize it into multiple folders.

Also, it's slow because of the partition. Depending on when and how you made it, either when you first got the HDD or later down the road after you installed the OS. Your HDD may be going back and for from C: to the second partition just because it's on the same HDD and obviously, that kills the HDDs performance.

What I suggest down the road. Either have a single partition on that HDD. Or get a second hard drive and copy over all your miscellaneous data over to it and re install windows on the old HDD.

Seeing that you have a seagate though makes me wonder.

Get SeaTools and run a diagnostic, and see if you can check the SMART status on the HDD. I bought a seagate HDD from that era and I noticed my performance drop. Basically, the HDD started creating tons of ECC errors that slows it down. Buying a new one fixed all that.