Dual Core Processor Issues--Please Help

[KayoticOrigin]

I jsut upgraded my processor to an AMD Opteron 2.2Ghz Dual Core socket 939 chip. I am running windows Vista and for some reason at rest my comptuer is using 75% to 90% CPU Capacity on both cores. This did not happen on my previous single core while running vista and when i run Ubuntu my new processor is back down to 1% to 2% CPU capacity at rest. I'm not sure why this is happening but i would like some help figureing out what i can do about it. I am a HUGE gamer and having my computer acting like this is not that comforting to me. SO please can someone help me figure out whats going on and what i can do about it.

Thank You,
-Kayotic

 

[dashogun]

Do you have any active processes occurring in the background?

 

[CitizenCain]

Pull up the task manager and find out which process/processes are eating all those CPU cycles. It's probably one of those junkware applications that OEMs sometimes bundle with new PCs - I'm thinking the McAfee AV or Symantec AV versions that come installed on new PCs now (pure junk - you can get free AV clients that work better and don't hog resources anyway). But whatever it is, you'll be able to see it in the task manager.

 

[KayoticOrigin]

Do you have any active processes occurring in the background?

Pull up the task manager and find out which process/processes are eating all those CPU cycles. It's probably one of those junkware applications that OEMs sometimes bundle with new PCs - I'm thinking the McAfee AV or Symantec AV versions that come installed on new PCs now (pure junk - you can get free AV clients that work better and don't hog resources anyway). But whatever it is, you'll be able to see it in the task manager.

Other then the Vista processes, no. This is a Fresh Install. I nuke my system anytime i upgrade the hardware.

 

[CitizenCain]

It would be helpful to know which particular Vista process is eating the cycles. There are some known issues with certain processes that can peg the CPU at or near 100% because they get hung... but to fix it, you have to know which particular process it is.

 

[KayoticOrigin]

Ok all the processes i have running are...

Firefox.exe (obviously not a core process but i'm listing them all) 24,708K
dwm.exe 19,764K
explorer.exe 16,524K
ieuser.exe 4,448K
MSASCui.exe 4,120K
Sidebar.exe 3,996K
taskeng.exe 3,312K
taskmgr.exe 2,040K
winlogon.exe 1,344K
csrss.exe 1,296K

those are the processes. It says there are 37 running in total thats prob including the services. If you need my to tell you which services are running then let me know.

 

[CitizenCain]

Ok all the processes i have running are...

Firefox.exe (obviously not a core process but i'm listing them all) 24,708K
dwm.exe 19,764K
explorer.exe 16,524K
ieuser.exe 4,448K
MSASCui.exe 4,120K
Sidebar.exe 3,996K
taskeng.exe 3,312K
taskmgr.exe 2,040K
winlogon.exe 1,344K
csrss.exe 1,296K

those are the processes. It says there are 37 running in total thats prob including the services. If you need my to tell you which services are running then let me know.

That's what I'm looking for, yeah, but instead of the memory usage, sort by CPU usage (number between 00 and 99). There's almost certainly just one that's eating it all up. And make sure you tick the "show processes from all users" (or whatever that box says), because it's probably a system process that's locking up your CPU.

 

[KayoticOrigin]

Heres a picture, I dont want to type it all.

 

[CitizenCain]

Urm... the "system idle process" isn't using any processor cycles. That 78% beside it is the percentage of free processor cycles you have at that point in time.

So I'm going to go ahead and say that you're not actually have the huge processor issues that you think you are.

Of course, I don't have any idea why the process manager seems to be adding the system idle process into your CPU usage, but that's not the case. If you open the "Performance" tab there, you'll see two real time graphs (one for each core, unless that's changed in Vista, I forget) graph the actual usage of your processor. Which, from the looks of things, should be at or near the bottom of the graphing box. You can then go about opening up applications and such and watch it spike up, but it looks like your Vista install is just adding idle time into processor usage, and not that it's actually using your CPU cycles.

Edit: Screenies from me.

This is what it looked like when I dropped a 2560X1028 screenshot into Paint.NET. (Oops! Kinda crunched up some cycles )

Here's the graph after my procs settled down. System Idle Process is "taking up" the other unused 98% of my cycles, but my task manager's actually displaying it properly.

 

[Deadpixel]

mcafee doesnt hog much system for me. mcafee is in background, and my pc is only at like 3%.

I dont know how, but it is setup, to only run one process, that detects everything, and if something is detected, all of MCafee goes running.