[General_Jah]

Hi guys,

I'm at my wits end and hope a true tech guru can solve this problem for me. For some reason my cpu usage started spiking. The culprit is explorer.exe and sometimes services.exe. They will go from almost nothing to 50% or so every few seconds making playing any games or using applications fubar. I run AVG and have run numerious other virus/trojan programs per the link on this forum and other forums. My system is coming up clean.

Now here is the troubleshooting I've done thus far to try and isolate what could be causing this.

IF I do a selective startup and uncheck only system.ini the problem goes away 99% of the time. (only had it occur while doing this once)
IF I boot in safemode the issue does not occur.

I've disconnected my pc from the internet and the issue still occurs.
I've unchecked all my services and startup tabs and the issue will still occur.

I've attached a dxdiag.txt as well as a highjackthis log in hopes this might help you guys to advise me.

Thanks!

Nvidia 8800GTX
Intel Core Duo E6600
EVGA 122-CK-NF68
2GB DDR/DDR2
Enermax Galaxy 1000 Watt Psupply
Windows XP SP2 (all updates installed)

Attached Files

•  DxDiag.txt   52.29KB   123 downloads
•  hijackthis.txt   11.49KB   145 downloads

Edited by General_Jah, 03 May 2008 - 02:16 AM.

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Download Process Explorer from the link in my signature. Install it and expand all options (click the + signs). Watch the table while the computer is working and let us know which processes spike and to what level. Please ignore System Idle Processes and anything else which is below, say, 10%.

[The Skeptic]

Download Process Explorer from the link in my signature. Install it and expand all options (click the + signs). Watch the table while the computer is working and let us know which processes spike and to what level. Please ignore System Idle Processes and anything else which is below, say, 10%.

[General_Jah]

Thanks I will try that. The problem appears to becoming intermmitent as of today :/ I am trying to reproduce and will report back!

[General_Jah]

This time it is primarily services.exe that is causing the spiking. I have attached two screenshots from process explorer showing the levels as well as a graph.

Please bear in mind this happens every 3 sec or so and my system is usually using 2-4% at idle. It spikes to 30% usage every few seconds.

Thanks!

Attached Thumbnails

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[The Skeptic]

Please do the following checking the computer after each step.

1: Disable every automatic update that there is in your computer. Windows, antivirus, adobe, nero, everything.

2: Disable, temporarily, your firewall.

3: Keep looking for few minutes at Process Explorer and see if you can get a better resolution. My process Explorer looks different and the process tree looks more logical, making it easier to view the relationship between processes. I can't set mine to look like yours and it is very confusing. I attached a screen shot of mine.

4: I suggest that you post your HJT log in our malware forum. We must make sure that the computer is clean.

Attached Thumbnails

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[General_Jah]

Please do the following checking the computer after each step.

1: Disable every automatic update that there is in your computer. Windows, antivirus, adobe, nero, everything.

2: Disable, temporarily, your firewall.

3: Keep looking for few minutes at Process Explorer and see if you can get a better resolution. My process Explorer looks different and the process tree looks more logical, making it easier to view the relationship between processes. I can't set mine to look like yours and it is very confusing. I attached a screen shot of mine.

4: I suggest that you post your HJT log in our malware forum. We must make sure that the computer is clean.

1) I've attached another screenshot of process explorer, this time sorted by name and not cpu usage and also before stopping any autoupdates.

2) I attached another ss of process explorer this time after stopping all automatic updates, removing firewall, and killing adobes photo album process. Once I killed the adproxy.exe my system reduced its spiking by about 50%. Was spiking to 40% now its down to around 20%, but unfortunately the issue is still there.

3) I'll post my HJT log in the malware area to see what they think.

Any ideas? Thanks for the help!

Attached Thumbnails

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[The Skeptic]

Let's see what the malware helpers have to say.

[General_Jah]

Well the plot thickens... I am _hoping_ I've solved the issue but we'll see. I unplugged my cdrom thats on a usb from my pc and instantly the spiking stopped... I've had issues in the past where sometimes my pc won't recognize the cdrom is plugged in and I have to turn it off/on to get it to recognize it.

I don't know if its my mobo that doesn't like it or the cdrom is a pos. I moved it to another usb port and so far no returns of the issue.

I'll keep you posted, thanks again!

[The Skeptic]

USB is a great part of the system but quite often I find that there are problems with it. Either the combined, or single port, load of devices is too high, drivers corrupted, physical damage (especially with front-side port), burned hub-roots etc.

I hope you pin-pointed the problem. Please keep us updated.