Crazy CPU usage

Joe Matthews · Mar 22, 2014

Hey there. I'm having trouble on my laptop. Recently I fixed up an old laptop and everything, seems to be ok apart from one thing, and that's my CPU usage. It's spiking through the roof from 10% - 70%+ nearly every 20 seconds. This seems to be directly related my my FPS drop when playing games like League of Legends and I can't find out why it is happening. I've checked my performance tab and resource manager, and nothing seems to be causing it, I seriously can't see anything that suddenly uses everything.

I have ran a boot time scan with avast which did pick up some things, but they were all moved to the chest.

Another factor which may be useful is the way I fixed my laptop. The HDD completely failed beyond recovery. So I scavenged from an older laptop which I don't use anymore and took that Hard drive. I had to do a bunch of updates etc but that all seems done.

Any suggestions?

JimF_35 · Mar 22, 2014

Yes it sounds like a Virus. Have you tried Malwarebytes? You can check your running programs by going to the command prompt and running TASKLIST.

Joe Matthews · Mar 22, 2014

Alright. If it's a virus it got through Avast's boot time scan. I'll download and use malwarebytes and let you know how it goes.

spoofer2 · Mar 22, 2014

i had something similar. and i've read somewhere that there is a certain common virus that does that.

Joe Matthews · Mar 23, 2014

Malwarebytes didn't pick up anything apart from a few PUPs. Still have this issue. I have noticed something in my resource manager called "System Interrupts" Not sure what it is, but m guess is that anything called System interrupt can't be good... http://gyazo.com/f3d24f684acf67361660a6dabc5c381c

CooLWoLF · Mar 23, 2014

Download and run this: http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

Joe Matthews · Mar 23, 2014

CooLWoLF :

Ran it. Here is my log http://pastebin.com/A0fYNgje

JimF_35 · Mar 23, 2014

You have a lot of Blotware on your computer.

I would remove all of that HP junk unless you have to call their tech support on a regular basis and they use these systems to trouble shoot your problem you don't need it. Just don't remove any drivers.

Also I did not see it but you remove all of the Ant-Virus programs when you are done and keep just one right? If you have more than one anti-virus program they will use up resource.

Joe Matthews · Mar 23, 2014

Yeah I do. I have all those other anti-virus software from different scan attempts.

Joe Matthews · Mar 24, 2014

So far no solution. Tried everything suggested here, CPU usage still spiking high and my fps in games (Specifically League of Legends) drop to 3fps

spoofer2 · Mar 25, 2014

hey if you look in your task manager and look in processes and sort by cpu usage, if you find that its something called lsass, its a virus. the fix for it can be found through microsoft update.

Joe Matthews · Mar 25, 2014

spoofer2 :

http://gyazo.com/879ea67db8301de5bdcbd6fc0af2b7ce

I have that, often it's higher than where it is currently listed, that's a virus? (I marked the process with a blue squiggle)

JimF_35 · Mar 25, 2014

ISASS is a part of Windows. That does not mean it is not infected with a rootkit virus but after all of the scanning you did I doubt it.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-security/isassexe/729e20f9-f32f-42c8-a7c4-67323f73c191

Your major problem is your SVHOST.EXE which runs the services on your computer. It s use 40% of your CPU. What this means is that you have a service that is using a lot f the CPU. To see a list of services you need to run SERVICES.MSC.

My guess is that it is probably one of the HP bloatware services that is using up your resource. Try this...

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/FiguringOutWhyMySVCHOSTEXEIsAt100CPUWithoutComplicatedToolsInWindows7.aspx

spoofer2 · Mar 25, 2014

regardless, make sure you're completely up to date through microsoft update, and realize that often times there will be more updates available after you do an update, so check for updates again until you really have no more updates.

Joe Matthews · Mar 27, 2014

Nothing is working... Tried everything I know and more, the more I google, the less related the answers are

spoofer2 · Mar 27, 2014

so you've read all of these articles, i suppose?

Cazalan · Mar 28, 2014

When you say "bunch of updates" it makes it sound like the drive was not reformatted. In that case you probably have some drivers conflicting.

You should reformat the drive and start with a fresh windows installation.

Guest · Mar 28, 2014

Joe Matthews :

Hey, Joe. Could you download HijackThis, run and send us your log file? Thanks.

Joe Matthews · Mar 28, 2014

Cazalan :

I don't have a windows disk, the laptop that I took the hard drive from came with windows pre-installed.

EDIT: I could probably get on from a friend, how do I completely start from scratch if I had it, I've never done it before.

Joe Matthews · Mar 28, 2014

Here, http://pastebin.com/TJhsJqv9

Guest · Mar 28, 2014

Joe Matthews :

From your log, I don't see any software problem. It may be hardware.
Could you explain with more details what did you mean with "I fixed up an old laptop" if you didn't reformated it?

Joe Matthews · Mar 28, 2014

I had two laptops, an HP pavilion dv6 and an Acer Aspire 5551. Both were unusable in different ways. The HP had a wrecked motherboard and the Acer had a fried harddrive. I took the hard drive from the HP and put it into the Acer and now the Acer works. All the windows updates that were needed are done.

Guest · Mar 28, 2014

So it's highly recommended that you format your HDD. Some programs (even your OS) may has it's settings adjusted for you old laptop hardware, and it is not recognizing it now.
To assure it, create a bootable USB with Ubuntu 12.04 LTS, boot from it in Experiment Mode. Open the Terminal and type: top. It's show your CPU usage, and it probably won't blow.
Also, when you format your HDD, it's a chance to get rid off all this unuseful programs, virus and adwares.

Joe Matthews · Mar 28, 2014

While I was on Ubuntu, my cpu seemed quite stable. It stayed around 0.5% - 0.7% mostly. I guess I'll reformat after I back up some of my stuff. What's the best way to do it? Just put in a Windows disk?

Guest · Mar 28, 2014

I'm sorry, but what do you mean about "Windows disk"? Just move it all to an external hard drive: all your photos, documents, bookmarks... You don't need to backup your program's settings also.
After done, download/buy an OS and install it. If your laptop has 4GB of RAM or more, use 64-bit arch; otherwise, 32-bit. If W7, Home Basic should work fine.

Note: I would suggest you to creado a dual-boot system: Ubuntu (10GB is enought) and Windows*. Just in case. Also, you could experiment Ubuntu.
*- Install Windows first, and then Ubuntu, because it's boot system is more stable.

Crazy CPU usage

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