8400 Dimension: stuttering when idle

Question

Hello, I was wondering if anyone has seen/heard of this issue:

Basically, my machine will periodically go crazy with the CPU cycles (spikes to 30-50% usage) when idle for no reason that I can tell and cause the machine to stutter in anything i do.

This happens when I do anything in windows such as browsing the web or working on an office doc. Sometimes it just happens when I'm working, other times it starts when I've left the machine idle with all apps closed.

Also, I've done the usual stuff such as virus scanning with almost all the brands (McAffee, Norton, AVP), spyware/adware scans, also have done the usual defrag and disk scans.

I don't suspect it was any of these as this actually first occurred when I got my machine 2 years ago almost within the first few days of using it, before I had installed any of my own apps. Yes, I know I should have contacted support back then but I was just lazy...

Anyhow, something else I noticed is that if I start a game (almost any game no matter how old or new), it will cause this to go away. What I mean is, normally this CPU spike will last for 5min to 30min, but if I start a game and immediately exit the game it removes the stuttering.

Weird. Any ideas? Thanks!

Message Edited by grimbergen on 09-21-2007 03:27 PM

Wellcraft19 · Answer

Since you seem to be familiar with task manager (where you read CPU utilization) I would look at the tab 'processes' and see if there is any of them that takes up a lot of CPU time. You can sort them on any column. CPU or 'Mem Usage' would likely be best.   There are a number of popular programs that load unnecassary , hidden routines that eat up CPU power. One of them is iTunes. A lot of stuff that runs, even after shout off iTunes (just ot make connection to an iPod faster, but I really hate that crapload and have disabled almost all 'unneded' stuff in 'services' or via 'msconfig'.

grimbergen · Answer

Thanks for your response. Yes, I forgot to mention also, what was perplexing is that even though the CPU graph shows the high utilization, when I switch over to the task list and watch it the highest usage is just system idle, at 97-99% CPU. That's what also outwitted me as well.

Windows General

8400 Dimension: stuttering when idle

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