CPU usage 100%...no apparent reason

Question

Hello everyone!

i have an Inspiron 6400 :

2GB Ram

Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz

Nvidia GO 7300 Graphics card

160GB HDD

Windows Vista Home premium

I have this problem of 100% cpu usage on my laptop.When i switch on my machine everythings fine,the laptop boots in under 30 secs.When the startup programs have loaded and evrything is fine,suddenly the cpu usage goes to 100% and stays there.Both the cores blast at full 100% and my machine is rendered useless.Also this problem occurs sometimes,a few of the times I am lucky enough to not have this problem and my laptop runs fine for hours together.I am sure its not a virus problem because I have formatted my HDD reinstalled windows.I have not installed many programs on my laptop,just the basic ones,so that rules out spyware/malware software interfering with my computer.

Also an interesting thing to be noted is that i have installed XP Professional on another partition in the same machine and it works just fine!Actually I am using the same laptop to create this post and I have no problems in doing it.I am really confused,is it a hardware problem?If so why am I not having problems running XP?

Please help!

davis5432 · Answer

The post discusses a problem with 100% CPU usage on a Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop running Windows Vista. The user has tried formatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows but the issue persists. Interestingly, the problem does not occur when using Windows XP on the same machine. The answer suggests that the issue might be due to incompatible hardware drivers in Vista and there is no known fix for it.

kirkd · Answer

Start by looking at the services tab in Task Manager. See what programs are using the processor the most. Click on the CPU column to order the processes by amount of usage with the System Idle Process in the top or botton. Research the high usage processes and remove those that are not needed or look like they don't belong. Post back with the results.

ad12 · Answer

The problem is that there is no process that is using that much processing power.Though the system idle process hovers around 0-1%,there is no process that takes up 90% or so of the processor.Also I have not connected the laptop to the internet in vista,which means there are no updates that are installed.

davis5432 · Answer

it is a problem with vista

kirkd · Answer

ad12:

Are there any processes taking up more than a few percent of the CPU time?

In Task Manager add the CPU Time column (select View then Add Columns then CPU time) and see if after some time that something is active.

Did you reinstall Vista from the Dell partition of from the Vista disk? If from the Vista disk, you will need to install the system board drivers to get things working.

The fact that it works sometime is always difficult. When it is working, get on the internet and do all the updates. Don't do SP1 initially till you get the thing working.

ad12 · Answer

Thanks KirkD for atleast trying to help me out with my problem.It seems like I have figured out what was the problem,my CPU Fan had gone bad due to overload and was running at a constant high speed because my processor used to heat up a lot.Called a Dell technician and he cleaned up the CPU cooling ducts etc and replaced the fan and my PC is as good as new! Vista is running smooth like butter,and I have installed all the important updates and Vista SP1. But I still couldnt figure out that how was I able to use my XP operating system under those pathetic conditions.Anyways thanks a lot.....

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CPU usage 100%...no apparent reason

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