cpu at 100%

[Dog-eared]

Merry Xmas everyone.
Can anyone please help -

I'm having trouble with my computer running very slowly.
Its an old PC but used to perform much better on broadband than now.
The only clue I have is that although the task manager shows two processes running - toolbar and firefox , the CPU usage is always 100%.
I ran CCleaner with no difference.

Any ideas folks?

[Bobinovich]

Almost certainly a virus or malware which is causing this. Firstly see if you can end the two tasks which are eating up the CPU resources - if they reappear within a few seconds then one of the above is pretty much guaranteed. If so then you could try the following processes in Safe mode (although you'll probably have to do the downloading/installing while in full mode).

Ensure your anti-virus is up-to-date and run a full scan. Download Spybot (www.safer-networking.org (http://www.safer-networking.org)) and Adaware (www.lavasoft.com (http://www.lavasoft.com)) and run full scans with them also.

There's also another program, Hijack This, which we can try if the 3 steps above don't cure the problem.

[maidencaithness]

Merry Xmas everyone.
Can anyone please help -

I'm having trouble with my computer running very slowly.
Its an old PC but used to perform much better on broadband than now.
The only clue I have is that although the task manager shows two processes running - toolbar and firefox , the CPU usage is always 100%.
I ran CCleaner with no difference.


Any ideas folks?

Something application/virus/network etc is using it up check the processes on the task manager and see which it is. I had similar problem once and ended up Zone Alarms Firewall had a problem.

Is it 100% from boot? Does it increase to a steady 100 or fluctuate?

[Dog-eared]

Will be working on your kind suggestions tonight /tomorrow.
At present am running firefox, zone alarm, AVG.
But -
AVG update gets stuck and doesnt finish updating, no matter how long I leave it . Virus ??

[Bobinovich]

No - probably just a corrupt AVG update. Double click the AVG icon down by the clock, click the Update Manager, then the Settings button and the Advanced tab then finally click Delete update temporary files and OK. Now just re-update and you should find it has cleared the problem.

[Sapphire2803]

When you say processes, do you mean applications (only two running) or processes (long list) are you clicking on the processes tab and then clicking the cpu column twice to get the cpu hungry processes to the top?
If not, then try that and see what comes out on top.

Firefox did lose the plot on my pc about a year ago and started using as much power as it could lay it's hands on, I uninstalled firefox and reinstalled it using the latest version, sorted the problem right out.