My cpu is burning both ends of the candle

[Magnum]

I am getting CPU usage in the 90 % range when there are no windows on the Taskbar and no open programs.

Everything is going real slow.

I got ShellExView, but there are about a 100 entries.

I am looking for suggestions as to what categories or items to start disabling to track down the source.

Andy

[Antariy]

I am getting CPU usage in the 90 % range when there are no windows on the Taskbar and no open programs.

Hi!

Which OS you have? If NT - check which process gives this load (check in TaskManager - [Ctrl]+[Shift]+[Esc])?



Alex

[Gunther]

Andy,

that sounds very strange. As Alex (Antariy) even wrote, check via task manager what happens there. Did you check your machine with actual virus scanners?

Gunther

[Magnum]

Alex and Gunther,

This is what someone told me.

<A shell extension has probably crashed.>

The shellex program shows all the shell extensions and allows you to disable the ones you want.

Apparently, it can be used to track down the source of my problem.

I am opening one program at a time, and checking the Cpu usage.

So far, Internet explorer and explorer are OK.

I will keep "plugging away" till I find the culprit.  :P

Andy

[Antariy]

......
<A shell extension has probably crashed.>
......

So far, Internet explorer and explorer are OK.

If Explorer.exe is not use much CPU time, this is meant what this is not "crash of shell extension". Because under "shell extension" is meaned COM-based DLLs, which is works in-processly, and its owner process is explorer.exe - i.e. - shell.
So, if some code in shell extension is buggy, and stuck to an infinite loop, then explorer.exe must "eat" big piece of CPU time.  :P



Alex

[Magnum]

In Event Viewer - Application

This is all the errors that have occured for the last three days.

Fault bucket 126833367.

Fault bucket 87299515.

Hanging application hh.exe, version 5.2.3790.1159, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang

address 0x00000000.

Hanging application HelpCtr.exe, version 5.1.2600.2180, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang

address 0x00000000.

Failed auto update retrieval of third-party root list sequence number from:

<http://www.download.windowsupdate.com/msdownload/update/v3/static/trustedr/en/authrootseq.txt>

with error: This operation returned because the timeout period expired.

Volume Shadow Copy Service error: Unexpected error calling routine CoCreateInstance.  hr =

0x8007043c.

[Gunther]

Andy,

do you have automatic updates enabled? That seems to be the source of your entire trouble.

Gunther

[Magnum]

Auto updates has been turned off.

I am checking my event viewer frequently so I know what I was running when it occurs again.

I have eliminated Firefox and Thunderbird.

Andy

Sow your seed in the morning, and do not stop working until the evening; for you do not know which activity will succeed – whether this one or that one, or whether both will prosper equally. Ecclesiastes 11:6

[Magnum]

I saw that your location is Berlin.

As in Germany?

My mother was born in Hannover.
I have been there twice.

Andy

[Gunther]

Andy,

My mother was born in Hannover. I have been there twice.

Yes, my location is Berlin, Germany. Hannover is a nice city, too, but it's approximately 250 miles away from Berlin.

To your CPU problem. There is a handy tool, called CCleaner; you'll find it, for example, here: http://download.cnet.com/ccleaner/ Check your system with it, especially what is loaded at system start. You'll be surprised what's going on.

Gunther

[Antariy]

Hanging application hh.exe, version 5.2.3790.1159, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang

address 0x00000000.

Hanging application HelpCtr.exe, version 5.1.2600.2180, hang module hungapp, version 0.0.0.0, hang

address 0x00000000.

This is very nice - some module with "speaking" name *HungApp* cause a hang.
I see, what HelpCtr is member of this ball. You have WinXP? WinXP help system, part of which is HelpCtr.exe and hh.exe (in some kinds of sense), and I hear what is the security bug in help system of WinXP, which can gain control over your system.
Try to turn-off helping service at all.

Edited: "Help and Support" is the name of helping service.


Alex

[Magnum]

The problem is occurring less frequently.

But when it occured last I checked right after the event and there were no errors

I did recently reinstall XP.

I recently found that I had not yet disabled disk caching for my hard disks.
Maybe I had a momentary power outage ?

Right now I am trying to figure out why the software for my scanner can find the device.

Andy

[Gunther]

Andy,

solved your XP problems?

Gunther

[redskull]

There is a wonderful sysinternals utility, ProcDump, which can be set to take crash dumps of a process when CPU usage exceeds a certain amount.  Set it and forget it, and when you come back, there will be a minidump you can investigate further.

-r

[Magnum]

Andy,

solved your XP problems?

Gunther

I got the scanner working O.K.

I forgot that if you don't do things in exact order, things go "veruckt."

Andy