High CPU usage with nothing running

[MrPicky]

I'd appreciate any help with the following. My Dell Studio laptop has a CPU usage of 50-55% when no applications are running. Task manager / processes shiows that WebcamDell.exe is running at 50-55% CPU usage. The webcam is not being used. Any ideas on clearing this problem? Thanks all.

 

[namuk]

Do you have any Virus scanners? if you do run them you may have a virus ect .

if not try theses
this is a Trojan ect scanner , once installed update the program then run.
The home of Spybot-S&D!

and this Anti-virus and auto updates or click update then run.
Avira AntiVir Personal - FREE Antivirus

both are free

 

[Empwan]

I would see if your webcam needs its driver updating, the webcam on the Dell 1545 became quite buggy a few months ago and Dell released an update. If you can't find the update, email Dell direct.

 

[AnthonyG]

I'd appreciate any help with the following. My Dell Studio laptop has a CPU usage of 50-55% when no applications are running. Task manager / processes shiows that WebcamDell.exe is running at 50-55% CPU usage. The webcam is not being used. Any ideas on clearing this problem? Thanks all.

The webcam hardware may not actually be running, but it does seem like the software has been included as a startup app.

Go to start and type in

msconfig

in the search box and go to the startup apps tab and disable it from the list.

Or even just go to add/remove programs and unistal it altogether if you do not have the actual webcam for this sofware.

 

[MrPicky]

Hi All, thanks for your advice.

I have Kaspersky Internet Security so for the moment at least I won't go down the virus route.

I went into msconfig but that didn't make a difference.

I will now look at the driver issue. I've found the Dell driver on the dell site so i'll try that later. Interestingly, since my original posting I've found that the webcam is not working (clicking on the 'take photo' icon on the desktop does nothing). It did work at one time.

If all else fails I could uninstall the webcam software and try reinstalling it - is it OK to do this?

Together we'll fix this thing! Thanks again and any further ideas would be appreciated.

 

[MrPicky]

Hi All. Success! It seems that playing with msconfig worked afterall. I shut down the laptop went back into msconfig, ticked the box for the webcam (after unticking it earlier) and hey presto down to 3% total, and the webcam works again. Thanks again to you all, particularly to Anthony who suggested the msconfig route.