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Cpu usage jumping up and down

borden5

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Joined
Apr 4, 2011
Messages
66 (0.01/day)
last 2 days i've noticed my cpu randomly going from 5-10-50-80-20-10% randomly at any given time,like when i open any program(almost everything close only open chrome ) it spiked and get lag till computer screen froze sometime, i open task manager and tried everything i could but i can't find the solution.Is my cpu dying ?motherboard failure ? maybe bad hdd or even dead ram stick. I tried clean it with malwarebyte and kaspersky rescue disk but nothing came up either.
here's my computer spec:
-core i7 920 @ default clock
-Wd 7200k 640gb
-nvidia gtx 560
-16gb kingston hyperx
-cooler master silent pro 850w
-dell studio xps 435tm motherboard
here's some ss
cpu.png

cpu1.png

cpu2.png

cpu3.png

cpu4.png

Can anyone pls tell me what's going on?
Appreciate it.
 
Dude, You have got, like, an insane amount of programs 'n stuff running in the background.
i.e. with that many background processes (some I know to be quite demanding at times, even when 'idling'), it is no wonder You get those spikes!
 
Dude, You have got, like, an insane amount of programs 'n stuff running in the background.
i.e. with that many background processes (some I know to be quite demanding at times, even when 'idling'), it is no wonder You get those spikes!

not mostly system services
 
the thing is that i used to run way more programs like 2 games+ stream open on background np for like 3 years but this unstable usage suddenly came up.
 
not mostly system services

/* I assume a ',' after "not" in that sentence You wrote. */

Not really a good argument:
1. "mostly" != "only"
2. it doesn't require a s***load of non-system services/apps/and_so_on to produce CPU spikes.
3. we don't see a good third of the list. Doesn't seem to be spiking at that particular moment the SS was taken, so some perpetrators could be "low-idling" at that moment and stay at the bottom unseen.
4. he has chrome running.
5. system services themselves can cause spikes if the conditions are right for that.

OT:
I'd try disabling most start-up apps (excluding those essential for the system to work).
Not launching anything. And then see if spikes still occur. Depending on the results, the further procedure would vary greatly.
 
Just watch task manager till it spikes again and see which process/es are doing it. I dont understand...
 
Just watch task manager till it spikes again and see which process/es are doing it. I dont understand...

Make sure you check the all users check box in task manager, click on CPU twice to bring the highest CPU using process to the top.

It could even be a broken rookit masking itself as a service which Malwarebtyes and Kaspersky's AV can not detect or get rid of.
 
I noticed you have roughly twice as much RAM being occupied by Chrome as I do when running Iron, about 220MB vs 110MB. Now granted Iron is based on Chrome, but even without the Google built-in, I'm doubting Iron would typically use only half as much RAM.

Being as Google is part of Chrome, and Google is sometimes hacked by the redirect bug and can be a security risk having it built into your browser (the main reason Iron exists), I would try checking for a browser hijacker and/or resetting your browser settings to the defaults.

A pretty good tool to check for BHO exploits is HijackThis, and it's freeware. You can either post a zipped version of the log file here, or paste it into into their online analyzer, which is easy to use. One way to get a fair idea whether it's a browser exploit is in such cases the fluctuation usually only happens when your browser is open.

Though I use Iron, I ALWAYS have back-up browsers installed and ready to use, even though I rarely have to. They include Firefox, Opera and Explorer. Have you tried running an alternate browser to see if the problem persists?

HijackThis - http://sourceforge.net/projects/hjt/

Online Analyzer - http://hijackthis.de/

If you continue to use Chrome, I seriously hope you have a good AV, Firewall and ad blockers. I use Avast, COMODO, AdSweep and AdBlock. Lastly, check what progs are checked as startups in Start\MSCONFIG. If there's anything in there that looks suspect, disable it, reboot, then see how things go. If it's something you know shouldn't be installed, try uninstalling it. Revo Uninstaller is great for uninstalling programs and the traces they leave behind. There are others too, but it's one of the best I've used.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Just watch task manager till it spikes again and see which process/es are doing it. I dont understand...
I've been watching but the only thing that show up is System idle process using most but which doesn't make any sense
Make sure you check the all users check box in task manager, click on CPU twice to bring the highest CPU using process to the top.
It could even be a broken rookit masking itself as a service which Malwarebtyes and Kaspersky's AV can not detect or get rid of.

yeah i did check all users and sort cpu processing
 
System Idle Process is only the app that measures how much CPU you're using. Seeing high CPU use in it doesn't mean it itself is what's using up CPU cycles. It's just telling you the amount everything else is using.

Did you read my post on possible browser problems and security tools/scans? Worth checking into if you haven't. The first thing I do if I have severe performance fluctuations is run offline scans and check for browser problems. If you assume it's not malware and it in fact is, the more you keep going online, the more you risk your security being compromised.
 
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