50% of CPU being used by closed programs

[signmaker]

Several months ago, I started noticing drastic slowdowns in my computer's response time. When I checked the processes in XP's Task Manager, I found that programs I had closed were using 50% of the CPU. Sometimes it was Firefox, other times it might be Outlook Express, an audio editor, or something else. Sometimes, there would be two instances of Firefox 3 running. I would manually kill the process and everything immediately came back up to speed.

My first thought was that I had a virus but after months of running daily scans by my AV software, two other malware programs, and occasional third-party scans, nothing of consequence has been found.

I can remember this starting shortly after two things occurred...a Windows XP update and an update to Firefox 3 from 2.something.

Anybody have any ideas?

[EzyStvy]

Does the pc get shut down or rebooted on a regular basis or is it left on 24/7?

[CarlS]

You are right about the causes; but I don't know the cure. I tried the Firefox beta that is currently out and it alleviated the problem.

[glc]

For some reason, the current version of Firefox 3 seems to suck up your ram and CPU. I have just noticed this recently.

[CarlS]

Yes it does and Simple Machines forum software runs really slow in the last three versions of Firefox. IE6 is faster than Firefox with SMP software. When I tried the beta version of Firefox, it was much faster.

[signmaker]

Originally Posted by EzyStvy Does the pc get shut down or rebooted on a regular basis or is it left on 24/7?

I turn it on about 10 A.M. and shut it off about 3 A.M.