# cpu spikes always



## kingmotox

whenever i close down a window and re-open it my cpu spikes to 100% what could be the problem i have a p4 1.8g and 1G of ram.


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## 4W4K3

kingmotox said:
			
		

> whenever i close down a window and re-open it my cpu spikes to 100% what could be the problem i have a p4 1.8g and 1G of ram.



well its probably thermal throttling. this uses as little CPU power as possible until the user activates an application...it speeds ALL the way up to open app faster(100%)...then once its done running it goes back down.(hence the rise and fall of CPU usage when you open windows and such) you can disable this in BIOS if you have a good mobo.but if its a manufactured computer it might not be accessible.


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## kingmotox

so disable thermal throttling in bios. it was not a bought computer i put it together.


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## kingmotox

i have a ASUS P4S533 SIS645/961, and i looked in the bios and i dont see thermal throttling. is there another name for it


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## 4W4K3

kingmotox said:
			
		

> i have a ASUS P4S533 SIS645/961, and i looked in the bios and i dont see thermal throttling. is there another name for it



hmmm...well thats all ive ever seen it called. look for an option with alot of percentages. at the very end of the options should be a "disable" option. i'll look into your BIOS and see if i can find it


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## Praetor

> whenever I close down a window and re-open it my cpu spikes to 100% what could be the problem


Well that's not horribly surprising, when your computer is idling, the usage will be roughly 0 and as soon as you kick something in, it jumps up


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## 4W4K3

Praetor said:
			
		

> Well that's not horribly surprising, when your computer is idling, the usage will be roughly 0 and as soon as you kick something in, it jumps up



does it go to 100% though??? mine usaully never goes that high unless i start benching from idle or something really big...do you know any other names for thermal throttling??? my moms laptop sounds exactly liek what his PC is doing...but its a laptop so i would be worried if it DIDNT have throttling..its not beneficial for desktop pc's (at least i never needed it for anything)


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## Praetor

> does it go to 100% though???


Depends on what you're launching. Anything from 30%-100% should be expected. For instance, you start Windows Media Player ... maybe a 30% jump...nothing special. You start Painkiller ... you'll get a 100% jump.



> do you know any other names for thermal throttling???


Nope! Dont use intel: i hate shit that upclocks and downclocks without my knowledge -- even for my laptop i manually set the clock speed and stuff ... ill be damned if they start reclocking on the spot when temperatures get high.


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## 4W4K3

Praetor said:
			
		

> Nope! Dont use intel: i hate shit that upclocks and downclocks without my knowledge -- even for my laptop i manually set the clock speed and stuff ... ill be damned if they start reclocking on the spot when temperatures get high.



its been on my AMD mobos from day 1...its on all PC's i though. Intel just claims to have developed it...cuz i had it on my NF2 EPOX board and my ABIT nf7-s board...just disabled it. it conserves battery power for laptops i guess...i use it cuz i take the laptop to my room and it only lasts about 3hrs..so if it was 100% al the time it'lldie in like an hour lol.


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## Praetor

True but i keep two laptops... one for brute force and for use on AC only... the other is a P3-700 and last 3.5 hours so i can take it to class and stuff


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## 4W4K3

Praetor said:
			
		

> True but i keep two laptops... one for brute force and for use on AC only... the other is a P3-700 and last 3.5 hours so i can take it to class and stuff



ah...long battery life is always better..but my mom never unplugs hers so i can disable it. its really 1.8ghz(mobile2400)...but with throttling it runs 500mhz...very sad lol. it could really run prety fast...but it seems to lag up when its trying to use throttling...weird.


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## Alin.s

eh leve it alone and be safe


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## 4W4K3

Alin.s said:
			
		

> eh leve it alone and be safe



well its not really "unsafe" to disable it...especially on a desktop PC. with a laptop the worst thing that could happen is ur battery drains while ur doing sumthin and u lose data...other than that ive never had any problems with it. i disabled it from day 1 cuz its bad when overclocking.


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## Praetor

> battery drains while ur doing sumthin and u lose data...


Well hopefully it hibernates long before that happens


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## kingmotox

the problem is if i have any application open like media player and and open and close a window it stops the player and pauses my comp for a second. just doesnt seem right


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## 4W4K3

kingmotox said:
			
		

> the problem is if i have any application open like media player and and open and close a window it stops the player and pauses my comp for a second. just doesnt seem right



how much ram do you have in your computer??? that sounds like a memory lag or something...if you have too many apps running at once and your memory is trying to work them all it will skip/freeze...especially WMP...thats one of the bigger apps. maybe im wrong...but sounds like maybe he needs more memory?


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## Alin.s

and on newer laptops theyll warn ya batt low close and save and shut down


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## 4W4K3

Alin.s said:
			
		

> and on newer laptops theyll warn ya batt low close and save and shut down



yeah thats what my momsw does...i got it to 3% battery life once and it shutdown on me...i dunno if you can turn that off or not.


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## Alin.s

hmm let me check into that


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## kingmotox

i have i gig of ram, and im not running that many programs only winamp


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## Praetor

Yes but when you "sit there" for some time, the computer goes into an idle state (not to be confused with the power management thingy) and when you "do something", it fires up ... nothing to be overly concerned about


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## kingmotox

im not concerned it might be normal but i dont like it because if im listening to music it stops it and or takes like 5-10 sec for the window to open. just doesnt seem right for 1 gig of ram and a 1.8g p 4


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## Praetor

> i dont like it because if im listening to music it stops it and or takes like 5-10 sec for the window to open


Ok thats not normal heehee. What video card (and what driver version) do you have? Sometime video cards have funky little settings that mess with performance like that although that seems kinda drastic


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## 4W4K3

when i type on AIM and listen to a CD at the same time sometimes my music skips if i type too fast. but there not really skips...more of lags so im not too concerned. and if i type slower it doesnt happen lol.


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## Praetor

WOW .... WOW. Shocking. So all this could be an AOL inefficiency???! WOW.

Are you using the offical AIM client? I dont and I never encounter those kinds of problems even when im encoding DVDs or something in the background (i uses trillian)


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## 4W4K3

latest version of AIM actually. it uses alot of system memory..dont know why. and it ONLY lags WMP if aim is running..i can be doing something more cpu intensive and WMP is fine..but aim messes it up lol. weird.


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## Praetor

Does AIM have voice features? Thats the only thing i can think of that could possibly cause problems


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## 4W4K3

yah it does have the capability. but i never use it..i dotnt even have a microphone.


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## Praetor

Is there a way to turn off that capability... i would think that would solve your problems


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## kingmotox

Praetor said:
			
		

> Ok thats not normal heehee. What video card (and what driver version) do you have? Sometime video cards have funky little settings that mess with performance like that although that seems kinda drastic


i have a GeForce2 MX/MX 400 and the latest driver i belive


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## Praetor

A bit old but standard nonetheless. Have you looked into the possibility of disabling either permenantly or temporarily the voice features of AIM?


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## kingmotox

i dont use aim


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## Praetor

Oop my bad,.. ok what proceses are killing your CPU?


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## kingmotox

none, its when i have winamp open and i open a window or close one like internet explorer or maybe outlook, by open i close i mean minimize and maxmize


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## Praetor

Yes but how do you know your CPU is hitting 100%? If you can find that out... then it would be listed in the process list (i hope)


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## kingmotox

i think its system idle


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## Praetor

If its system idle than you're fine.


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## kingmotox

its explorer.exe...i found out


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## Praetor

Well that would suggest something wrong with the configuration of your OS


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## kingmotox

like what? where could i start to diagnose?


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## Praetor

I havnt the foggiest! Have you installed anything new lately? Done any OS modifications?  That would be somewhere to start


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## kingmotox

is has done it as long as i can remember..i guess im just stuck with it then


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## Praetor

You can always try a system reformat


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