cpu maxing out!

jayr6666 · 28-09-2008, 11:37 AM

I have quite an old pc,got it in 2001.It's a median pentium 4,512 ram and gforce 6200 128mb.I did have a gforce 5500 256mb and everything was fine until the graphics card went pop so i replaced it with the 6200,now when i open up media player 11 it maxes out my cpu(1.8ghz).Also,i used to use the media sharing option quite a lot for my archos media player but now i cannot as turning this option on in media player also maxes out my cpu even when media player is not running.Is this because i dropped to 128mb on the gaphics card or is it something else?I've been trying to keep this pc going for a year or so and it's becoming a bit of an obsession(!).

Xerstead · 28-09-2008, 12:12 PM

It's nothing to do with the graphics card.
I find when Media player is scanning the HDD for new files (with volume leveling) it uses 25% cpu power of my Q6600. This would be one core maxed out. This does take quite a long time to complete especially if you have a large music collection. The search box says that the search will continue if you close it. I tried and it's now running in the background with minimal cpu useage. Given your older processor, it may be the answer.

jayr6666 · 28-09-2008, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xerstead

It's nothing to do with the graphics card.
I find when Media player is scanning the HDD for new files (with volume leveling) it uses 25% cpu power of my Q6600. This would be one core maxed out. This does take quite a long time to complete especially if you have a large music collection. The search box says that the search will continue if you close it. I tried and it's now running in the background with minimal cpu useage. Given your older processor, it may be the answer.

Thanks for your reply.I understand what you are saying but all my media has been imported(from my slave hard drive)so the cpu should not be working on that sector.And when i close media player my cpu is still at 100% because sharing is on!If i close these two down(media player and sharing)then the cpu shows normal working percentage.It is only when either of these are running that cpu usage hits 100%.This never happened on my old 256mb graphics card.

jayr6666 · 28-09-2008, 12:33 PM

Just checked,media player 11 closed but sharing is enabled,under task manager wmpnetwk is at 100%.I even re-installed windows xp pro yesterday because this was bugging me but to no avail.This all points to the card.

Xerstead · 28-09-2008, 1:45 PM

Tried googling it and found this:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethanol

Found the solution for this one. It's a bad AVI file. I can't tell you the right way to find out which file is NFG...

Apparently Media Player reads all the files and if you've got a corrupt AVI, it cannot get whatever data it needs off the end of the file.

I used the VLC player to peruse all my video and it flagged an AVI as corrupt.... Just deleted it and all was good.

Saw a couple of other sites offering the same answer. Try using the windows search tool for *.AVI and check if any of them cause your problem.

jayr6666 · 28-09-2008, 6:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xerstead

Tried googling it and found this:

Saw a couple of other sites offering the same answer. Try using the windows search tool for *.AVI and check if any of them cause your problem.

funny this as i tried googling same but didn't find this.you were right though,it was an unfinished movie file.thanks a lot for your help.

jayr6666 · 08-10-2008, 5:21 PM

well the problem is back and this time it's shutting off windows but the base station is still powered up!Read my first post for pc spec and i'll explain what's happening now.whan i replaced the old 256mb card with the 6200 128mb one all was fine for a while,albeit slowing down my pc a bit but i put that down to the 128mb difference in the card spec.Now whenever i open up an app or program that didn't used max out my cpu on the old card,it is now at 100% pretty much all of the time.for instance,when i open steam for a game of counter-strike,it's maxed out until it completely loads,which takes an age now and it never used to!
Also,my son has started using miniclip to play their flash based games and this also maxes out the processor constantly leading to windows completely closing down and restarting or displaying a system 32 error message,however this goes when i switch off the base station then power it back up.
All in all,after about five minutes of using something that shouldn't use that much processor and memory,windows is shutting down as a result of the cpu being at 100% which in turn is causing this failure.I know i've got a very old machine but every thing used to be fine using the old gforce5500 256mb card,now i've got the 6200 128mb card it's not!Should a drop in 128mb on a graphics make this much difference?Any help out there?

jayr6666 · 08-10-2008, 5:27 PM

just to add,i thought it might be a heat issue,so pumped some cool air in the case but it happened again even though every thing was cool.could it be a psu issue?

CP-PC · 09-10-2008, 10:09 PM

the graphics card should not make the differences you are seeing. the memory on the graphics card is only used to hold texture details for rendering stuff. it may be other messed up audio or video files on your pc. sometimes windows media player just has a spaz every now and again. you have other problems if your pc is crashing just because its been at 100% cpu useage that would lead me to a heat issue. if its not a heat issue it may be hard drive corruption or a virus of some sort.

what happens if you close down windows media player AND the network shareing and then play a game?? still the same problem?? is your music folder in a mess?

under device manager have you got any problems??? exclamation marks? drivers not installed? that may cause problems aswell. maybe your graphics card damaged part of your motherboard when it went pop???

jayr6666 · 10-10-2008, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CP-PC

the graphics card should not make the differences you are seeing. the memory on the graphics card is only used to hold texture details for rendering stuff. it may be other messed up audio or video files on your pc. sometimes windows media player just has a spaz every now and again. you have other problems if your pc is crashing just because its been at 100% cpu useage that would lead me to a heat issue. if its not a heat issue it may be hard drive corruption or a virus of some sort.

what happens if you close down windows media player AND the network shareing and then play a game?? still the same problem?? is your music folder in a mess?

under device manager have you got any problems??? exclamation marks? drivers not installed? that may cause problems aswell. maybe your graphics card damaged part of your motherboard when it went pop???

Thanks for your reply.I've been doing some investigating and it seems it is a heat issue.I downloaded a program called speedfan which monitors heat in the gpu,cpu and hard drives then controls the fan speed to compensate.both the gpu and the cpu were very hot indeed(58c and 56 respectively)which probably caused windows to shut off.I pumped some cool air in the case from a portable fan and this brought the temp right down and it hasn't shut down since.But the cpu still runs at 100% on applications which should not max it out,not half as much as before though.When steam is loading it's at 100% but i can still play a game of counter-strike as the percentage drops after loading.I think a new pc is on the cards!

CP-PC · 10-10-2008, 10:24 PM

i thought there might be a heat related issue somewhere. are the fans clogged up with dust? or maybe even the heatsinks blocked?? hows the thermal paste??? maybe time for a re-aply of thermal paste and reseating the heatsink aswell as a spring clean of the pc fans and heatinks and vent holes in the case. i dont think it will be hardware causing you this 100% load issue i think its probably corrupted video or music files. or maybe a poorly organised music folder? maybe you have moved or deleated some files that media player is having trouples finding???

you said you re-installed windows... was this a format of your drive and fresh start??? if so it would point me to a problem with your media folders or maybe a virus in your media somewhere. have you scanned for viruses???

try sorting out the heat issue which should help with stability and fault diagnosis

when you said loading steam takes 100% but is fine onces its loaded??? maybe your hard drive or hard drives are just is a bit of a mess and need tidying up and defragmenting??

what happens if you exit media player and leave network shareing on but unplug your network cable..... if your processor is still at 100% it would eliminate another pc on the network causing problems.
another thing to try is to make sure your network settings are all correct as that might make media networking have a spaz. hope some of this helps

jayr6666 · 11-10-2008, 9:17 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CP-PC

i thought there might be a heat related issue somewhere. are the fans clogged up with dust? or maybe even the heatsinks blocked?? hows the thermal paste??? maybe time for a re-aply of thermal paste and reseating the heatsink aswell as a spring clean of the pc fans and heatinks and vent holes in the case. i dont think it will be hardware causing you this 100% load issue i think its probably corrupted video or music files. or maybe a poorly organised music folder? maybe you have moved or deleated some files that media player is having trouples finding???

you said you re-installed windows... was this a format of your drive and fresh start??? if so it would point me to a problem with your media folders or maybe a virus in your media somewhere. have you scanned for viruses???

try sorting out the heat issue which should help with stability and fault diagnosis

All that you've said i did about two weeks ago and the install of windows was a complete format.task manager says that there's no load on the cpu for media player or media sharing and it's only when i run firefox to open a page that iget this issue.even when virus and spyware scan is running(which both come up clean)the cpu is at 100%.When no programs are running the gpu and cpu are very hot,so much so that i have use this portable fan to cool things down!I did re-apply thermal compound and clean out the whole pc but to no avail.All my media is on a slave disc which gets scanned regularly.I am at a loss for this problem.
Only thing i can think of is that re-applied the thermal compound that i got a little bit on the pins of the cpu because i put on too much and had to take the cpu out again,hence it went every where.could this be causing the cpu to be running abnormally

CP-PC · 11-10-2008, 9:34 PM

not likley no
try unplugging your slave hard drive with all your media on. then boot into xp and see if you still get the same problem. what anti virus have you got? and what firewall are you using??

so the 100% cpu load only happens when firefox is open now?? try using firefox without all the adins

jayr6666 · 12-10-2008, 11:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CP-PC

not likley no
try unplugging your slave hard drive with all your media on. then boot into xp and see if you still get the same problem. what anti virus have you got? and what firewall are you using??

so the 100% cpu load only happens when firefox is open now?? try using firefox without all the adins

I've got zonealarm anti-virus and firewall.When i checked device manager it says there are no drivers installed for "simple communications controller,i've downloaded all latest drivers from micro-star(mobo manufacturer)but to no avail,still no drivers installed.could this have something to do with it?Cant find these drivers anywhere on net.

CP-PC · 12-10-2008, 12:58 PM

it may have something to do with it yeah, have msi (Micro-Star International) got an auto updater? it should detect your motherboard model and download and install all the latest drivers. i would not trust zone alarm as i have seen a few nasites slip past zone alarm un-detected but thats just personal preference, loads of people are happy with zone alarm.

i just had a look and msi has this MSI -- MICRO-STAR INT'L CO., LTD.
its called live update and it should detect your hardware and install everything.

im not sure what the "simple communications controller" is refering to but it would seem to tie in with media player network shareing and firefox.

jayr6666 · 12-10-2008, 11:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CP-PC

it may have something to do with it yeah, have msi (Micro-Star International) got an auto updater? it should detect your motherboard model and download and install all the latest drivers. i would not trust zone alarm as i have seen a few nasites slip past zone alarm un-detected but thats just personal preference, loads of people are happy with zone alarm.

i just had a look and msi has this MSI -- MICRO-STAR INT'L CO., LTD.
its called live update and it should detect your hardware and install everything.

im not sure what the "simple communications controller" is refering to but it would seem to tie in with media player network shareing and firefox.

yeah,they have and i've downloaded all latest drivers from them but no joy.did read somewhere that this controller has something to do with cards and the like relaying info to the mother-board.so,in brief,i think this process is being interupted down the line by the lack of drivers.may do another of windows to see if settings right themselves.but i think it's a case of installing to too many solutions to fix one problem!this is really starting to bug me!

jayr6666 · 15-10-2008, 4:43 PM

Well,I finally found out what the cause of this problem was.yesterday my pc shut down,well windows did,and would not boot back in so i tried to re-install a fresh copy.Every time it failed on "kernall debugger"!I got fed up and left it to cool down as it was still shutting off periodically because of the heat issue.Tried one last time an hour later,then i got an error message "code 4",and then again,so searched the net on my archos for half an hour found posts on the windows forums suggesting this could be a memory issue.After swapping around the two sticks of sdram i got a warning tone from my pc when one particular module was in there by itself,took that one out,put the other one in and there you go,booted up no probs and no more heat issues!
It seems that this faulty memory module has been the cause of all my problems for the last month and i think it fried my previous gpu.something so bloody simple!Tanks for all your help lads.

CP-PC · 15-10-2008, 9:03 PM

turns out to be the ram. well i would not have thought that. i dont think bad ram would have fried your graphics card and i dont think bad ram would be causing your cpu heat issues. but glad you got it fixed

jayr6666 · 17-10-2008, 8:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by CP-PC

turns out to be the ram. well i would not have thought that. i dont think bad ram would have fried your graphics card and i dont think bad ram would be causing your cpu heat issues. but glad you got it fixed

Many thanks to you and all that gave advice.I would be lost without avf.

bignelson · 13-11-2008, 6:54 PM

Ram is cheap now