Laptop CPU @ 100%

[peekaboo]

my wife's laptop (HP Pavilion ZE4800) has never been quick but recently it has gotten noticeably slow.
last night it was working fine (slow as usual) but this morning while my wife tried to wake it from it's sleep, it froze on the screensaver.

i forced a shutdown and restarted it but it would immediately show 100% cpu usage and would stay that way.
i scanned it using spybot, xsoftspy and adaware - nothing.
i restored it to a restore point, two days ago, and it was still stuck on 100%.
i formatted it and reinstalled xp and as soon as i logged on for the first time it was at 100%.
i forced it off and i don't know what else to do.

suggestions?

[Statica]

The performance monitor is not the most accurate thing out there, provided you've ruled out other anomalies. I'm assuming that you have a freshly installed .. new installation with the CPU stuck at a 100% even though you did ALL of the following:
a) Gave it enough time to idle correctly AFTER it ran through what you can assume was normal startup routines
b) The reboot is NOT after an installation of a service pack or a patch or even a fresh program
c) You have accounted for all items on the startup .. INCLUDING those that are legitimate processes .. like an antivirus, disk indexing, or anything else that requires CPU cycles.

If you've done all of the above, I would not jump to any conclusions about the performance monitor being extremely accurate .. for example: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810876/en-us

[peekaboo]

it froze after being idle all night and seemed to get worse with every reboot.
i formatted the entire C drive (there's a D partition for data) and installed a fresh instance of XP. i let it idle for a very long time but it remained at 100% and the fan was blowing like it was trying to answer the meaning of life.
it refuses to shut down and just sits at the "windows is shutting down" stage.

i just used acronis true image to restore it to an image from 2006 and it completed the process but booted up to a 100% cpu usage and stayed that way for about 40 minutes.
i forced it to shut down and i'm out of ideas (didn't have many to begin with).

[rcvalencia09]

I had a customer having the same problem before. Even after Format/OS Reinstall still having the same problem. Check Task Manager if th svchost.exe process is causing this. Try to turn off Wndows Automatic update, check if that helps. Update OS manually. Im sorry but i forgot the solution for this. I alreafy left the company that i worked for. Its saved on their database the notes how i resolved this.

[peekaboo]

Originally Posted by rcvalencia09 I had a customer having the same problem before. Even after Format/OS Reinstall still having the same problem. Check Task Manager if th svchost.exe process is causing this. Try to turn off Wndows Automatic update, check if that helps. Update OS manually. Im sorry but i forgot the solution for this. I alreafy left the company that i worked for. Its saved on their database the notes how i resolved this.

if you could somehow remember the solution, i would really appreciate it.

[shadowpr]

i'm assuming you're using task manager to see cpu usage, what process does it show as using the cpu?

[peekaboo]

since i restored an image from 2006, it's not a fresh install anymore.
i just rebooted and here's what's running.

[Statica]

I would try looking at CPU usage by turning off your Diskeeper service and the Acronis image mounter services (including schedul2). For looking at svchost .. recommend you use Process explorer rather than the taskmanager : http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sys...sexplorer.mspx

[peekaboo]

i am now formatting the drive again and installing XP. i won't install any additional software other than the process explorer.

i doubt that it is any windows process that is causing this because the laptop is straining during the format itself and after a clean install without any installed software. i've tried to boot ubuntu (just live from a cd) and it struggled and eventually just shut down.

i don't think it's an inaccurate reading of the cpu usage because the laptop fan is working overtime and the computer is struggling to operate. shutdown is impossible without holding down the power button for a few seconds.
something at a lower level is going on.

UPDATE:
it is now 1.5 hours later and the xp installation is still on the "setup will complete in approximately: 13 minutes" stage.

UPDATE 2:
it finally changed screen but hung for a very long time so i forced it to shut down and rebooted into windows xp.
i ran process explorer and this is what it showed:
1
2
i have no idea what i'm looking at.

UPDATE 3:
i ran memtest (using Hiren's boot cd) and the laptop shut down mid-test.
i ran DocMemory and it also shut down mid-test.
i ran memtest again and took a picture of the screen a couple of minutes before the laptop shut down again.
here it is

UPDATE 4:
i removed a stick of ram.
booted up and cpu usage is now 1%.

how does a faulty ram stick cause the cpu to be stuck at 100%?

[glc]

It's tying the CPU up totally trying to correct the errors.

[peekaboo]

after i took one ram stick out and it booted fine, i switched the sticks.
i expected the boot to fail because i thought the ram stick was faulty.
it booted normally.
so i assumed the ram slot was faulty and stuck in the ram stick (expecting a failed boot or 100% cpu usage again).
booted normally.

so i now have both ram sticks installed, only switched (i took one out, then took out the second stick and put the first stick in its slot, then stuck the second stick in the first stick's slot).
the laptop works normally and i don't understand it.

[glc]

Maybe you had a dirty connection.