"system" cpu usage 100%

[skhoon]

Hi, this issue has been bothering me for awhile, and I did some search on my own about this issue, but I couldn't find much helpful advice. So I decided to ask for a help.

I currently have dell laptop inspiron e1505 with 1.83ghz, 1gb ram, & windows xp home edition. I bought this computer 3 yrs ago and it has gotten slower; thus, through a friend I reformatted the computer about couple months ago. My friend got it reformatted through her school, and the school installed all the drivers for me, so I don't exactly know what drivers are installed. anyways, the issue is that since I reformatted the computer, (I cannot exactly remember if the problem occured before or after I installed all the programs such as adobe suite, office tools, firefox, etc.), the computer would freeze up randomly without a notice. Thus, i checked Windows Task Manager, and under processes tab, "SYSTEM" would be eating up 95-100% of cpu. I tried closing all the processes and services (such as automatic updates, nvidia driver, etc.) that are unnecessary in running the computer, yet the SYSTEM would still be using 100% cpu and the computer stays slow. I checked the Event Viewer to see if there's an error, but couldn't find anything. I ran virus checks using both norton antivirus and avg, but couldn't find a significant threat. I uninstalled norton and just kept avg., thinking having two antivirus programs may be the problem, yet the issue still occured. I tried removing my battery couple times after reading some advice, yet that also didn't solve the problem.

I can't really find a consistant pattern, because sometimes the laptop would work just fine. But my opinion is that it may be related to something video, because I think it occurs more often when i'm watching something on youtube, hulu.com, other video-websites, & avi files through itunes or gom player. however, that also is not inconsistant. once the laptop slows down, even after I close all the applications and unnecessary processes/services, the laptop stays slow with 100% cpu usage mostly by "SYSTEM". the problem often disappears when I restart the computer, but sometimes it doesn't go away even after I reboot the system.

I really don't have a clear idea of what is going on and what is causing SYSTEM to take 100% cpu usage. Please, help me out. Thank you.

[Monty007]

Hi, first thing to do is to download process explorer http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896653.aspx
It is a very powerfull program so install it and see what you can find running on your PC.

[Power Bank]

Hi skhoon
I had exactly the SAME PROBLEM on my pc. up until 3 months ago. I can not say I have resolved it but since I did the following, the problem has not returned:-

I had nearly always used Adaware on my system for tracking cookies and things. When my system did grind to a virtual halt, I looked in the Task Manager. It showed the Adaware program (AAWService.exe) was listed as running several times in the "Process" column. Sometimes I had started Adaware program only once to do a manual scan and at other times I had not started it at all. Yet there it was in the Task Manager, listed several times!

I uninstalled Adaware >> computer restart>>re inastalled and it kept coming back as above. Finally what worked for me was that having uninstalled it one more time, I stayed away from downloading Adaware a few days during which I used other anti-cookies programs ( viz Malwarebytes and also SuperAntispyware - both free downloads).

After about two weeks I downloaded Adaware, installed it and now the problem is not there anymore. As I said this may not be a solution for your system. However for me the moral of my story is that there may a rogue program listed in the TaskManager causing grief.

Power Bank