cpu usage 80-100%, system slowdown, please help

[platon 0]

Hi,i am having seroius problems with my system and i am wondering if it is the motherboard or Win XP that is causing the problem. Let’s say i’m playing mp3:s (the only application running is musicmatch jukebox, winamp etc.) and after 5-10 minutes, the cpu starts working, from 3-5% to 80-100% causing system slowdown and sound errors. I’ve disabled the built-in soundcard on the motherboard. I’ve tried different soundcards, changed pci-slots for these, re-installed xp, updated the bios, scanned for viruses but nothing seems to help. This problem is a real pain. Please help, because i am about to go crazy!!!

 

 

Thanx!!!

 

My System:

 

Amd 1500

Epox 8k7a+ motherboard

512 DDR

2*40GB IBM HDD (Raid)

Soundblaster Live (I’ve also tried with Hercules Fortissimo II and SB Audigy)

Geforce 3 64mb Asus 8200

Win Xp

[Sampson 0]

Both MusicMatchBox and Winamp have components that go out to the net. Winamp does so for CD's in order to get titles, etc. It may be that they are trying to access your modem or network card, or it may be that you have some "spyware" component utilizing your internet bandwidth. Try downloading Ad-aware and running it to see if such components exist on your machine. Run your Anti-virus software to see if you have something like a mssg or a Newbiero component. Try the easy stuff that can be stealing CPU cycles first.

[Admiral LSD 0]

Quote:

Winamp does so for CD's in order to get titles, etc.

What I find amusing is that Winamp has been doing this for years and yet when M$ start doing something similar with DVD titles the privacy advocates get up in arms saying M$ are trying to track your DVD viewing habits. Maybe they are but whose to say CDDB aren't doing something similar?

edit: I assume you've checked the "Processes" section of the Task Manager for stuff that could be consuming your CPU cycles and came up with nothing out of the ordinary, correct?

[platon 0]

yeah, i've tried closong those applications that are sucking up cpu-activity, but no luck so far....What do you think of disabling ACPI??

[Cynan 0]

It can be related to your ACPI or MPS settings in your BIOS. Try changing those around.

[JP- 0]

Which process is using up all the cpu time?

[platon 0]

it differs from time to time......it seems to be random but there are usually about 5-6 different processes working....Another thing, i've checked my irq-settings and it seems i'm charing my soundcard with raid (irq 11) and all the others have their own irq.....What do you guys think of this.......??? Could it be that this is the source of my problem??? A possible conflict between my sound-card and the raid??

 

Thanx for your support

[Alien 1]

It's not so much about what XP says is using which IRQs, I think it's more important that with something like that you find out how your mobo assigns & shares out the IRQs.

 

For example, most mobos these days have the 1st PCI slot & the AGP slot sharing an IRQ. Then you'll most likely have [depending on how many PCI slots you have] 2 PCI slots that share another IRQ, another 1 that shares with your onboard USB controller, & another that shares with your RAID controller, etc. You have to find out from either your manual or your mobo's manufacturer how they've organised all this & what's sharing with what. If there's a PCI slot that isn't sharing resources with anything else then problem solved. but you may not have that, so if you have a setup like mine where there's 2 PCI slots that share resources with each other but not anything else then pick 1 of them & don't use the other slot.

 

Having said all this, this should only be necessary if you have a soundcard that isn't properly ACPI complient [or so I've been told], & I would think that an SB Live would be new enough.

[platon 0]

thanx for your feedback

 

I'll come back to you

[asparian 0]

Have you tried running as a normal (limited) user and not a Admin. Admins run extra tools and you could have triggered one. Not all processes show up in Task Man! MSDN explains how to write and detect hidden sys level tasks if you are interested.

 

Be aware that IRQs are not used in the same way they were when DOS compatibility was important. Just because three devices share the same IRQ does not mean the individual devices run any slower. Of course if you are trying to run DOS or old Win95 games under XP/NT/2000 then IRQ settings are important. If this is so, make a Bootable DOS partition just for them!

The changes to IRQ usage are a fore-runner to 1960s IRQ design being scrapped - I will break out the champagne that day!