iTunes taking 100% of CPU when playing - driving me mad!

Hi all,

When a track starts playing in iTunes 6, after 10 seconds and then for exactly 20 seconds it will take 100% of CPU. The bizarre thing is it's not the iTunes.exe process that's taking the resources but the "System"process (not "System Idle" ). It is really annoying as it will do this whenever a track starts playing which obviously slows my PC down and makes getting things done (while listening to music) a nightmare.

Check out this image to see what I mean - iTunes is open and playing, CPU is maxed out in Task Manager and Process Explorer shows "System" taking 85% of CPU.
http://41south.homeip.net/images/itunes_problem.png

I use iTunes 6.0.4.2 on an AMD64 3200 (Socket 754) on an Abit KV8-Max3 board with 1GB of Corsair TwinX LL DDR333 RAM, 2x74GB Raptors and a 200GB SATA drive - so it's not a slow system and it handles everything else I throw at it with no problems.

I've updated the sound chip driver, CPU driver and BIOS to the latest versions but it still does it. I've also tried switching off the onboard AC97 chip on my mobo and using an old Soundblaster Live! I have but that made no difference either.

I'm virus-free, I've shutdown everything that doesn't need to be running, I've disabled my anti-virus (NOD32) and still it happens!

It doesn't happen in any other media player and didn't happen in iTunes 5 and my HTPC (which is a very similiar spec) has no CPU problems playing any track in iTunes 6 - so it's something on my PC it seems... if only I could work out what!!!

TIA for any help or advice anyone can offer - I really don't want to give up using iTunes so any other constructive suggestions would be welcomed.

Mike

Hi all,

When a track starts playing in iTunes 6, after 10 seconds and then for exactly 20 seconds it will take 100% of CPU. The bizarre thing is it's not the iTunes.exe process that's taking the resources but the "System"process (not "System Idle" ). It is really annoying as it will do this whenever a track starts playing which obviously slows my PC down and makes getting things done (while listening to music) a nightmare.

Check out this image to see what I mean - iTunes is open and playing, CPU is maxed out in Task Manager and Process Explorer shows "System" taking 85% of CPU.
http://41south.homeip.net/images/itunes_problem.png

I use iTunes 6.0.4.2 on an AMD64 3200 (Socket 754) on an Abit KV8-Max3 board with 1GB of Corsair TwinX LL DDR333 RAM, 2x74GB Raptors and a 200GB SATA drive - so it's not a slow system and it handles everything else I throw at it with no problems.

I've updated the sound chip driver, CPU driver and BIOS to the latest versions but it still does it. I've also tried switching off the onboard AC97 chip on my mobo and using an old Soundblaster Live! I have but that made no difference either.

I'm virus-free, I've shutdown everything that doesn't need to be running, I've disabled my anti-virus (NOD32) and still it happens!

It doesn't happen in any other media player and didn't happen in iTunes 5 and my HTPC (which is a very similiar spec) has no CPU problems playing any track in iTunes 6 - so it's something on my PC it seems... if only I could work out what!!!

TIA for any help or advice anyone can offer - I really don't want to give up using iTunes so any other constructive suggestions would be welcomed.

Mike

Hi all,

When a track starts playing in iTunes 6, after 10 seconds and then for exactly 20 seconds it will take 100% of CPU. The bizarre thing is it's not the iTunes.exe process that's taking the resources but the "System"process (not "System Idle" ). It is really annoying as it will do this whenever a track starts playing which obviously slows my PC down and makes getting things done (while listening to music) a nightmare.

Check out this image to see what I mean - iTunes is open and playing, CPU is maxed out in Task Manager and Process Explorer shows "System" taking 85% of CPU.
http://41south.homeip.net/images/itunes_problem.png

I use iTunes 6.0.4.2 on an AMD64 3200 (Socket 754) on an Abit KV8-Max3 board with 1GB of Corsair TwinX LL DDR333 RAM, 2x74GB Raptors and a 200GB SATA drive - so it's not a slow system and it handles everything else I throw at it with no problems.

I've updated the sound chip driver, CPU driver and BIOS to the latest versions but it still does it. I've also tried switching off the onboard AC97 chip on my mobo and using an old Soundblaster Live! I have but that made no difference either.

I'm virus-free, I've shutdown everything that doesn't need to be running, I've disabled my anti-virus (NOD32) and still it happens!

It doesn't happen in any other media player and didn't happen in iTunes 5 and my HTPC (which is a very similiar spec) has no CPU problems playing any track in iTunes 6 - so it's something on my PC it seems... if only I could work out what!!!

TIA for any help or advice anyone can offer - I really don't want to give up using iTunes so any other constructive suggestions would be welcomed.

Mike

Word.

Thanks liquidpaper - a really helpful post.... I hope you enjoy your generic player as much as I enjoy my 3 iPods and iTunes.

In the meantime, on a more constructive front, I managed to finally solve this so thought I'd post it in case anyone else should have the same problem.

Basically, I loaded up ProcessExplorer (from Sysinternals) and looked at the 'Threads' tab of the Properties dialog of the 'system' process as the problem was happening. As soon as I monitored it I saw that it was the NOD32 file monitor (amon.sys) that was causing the problem - shutting it down makes the problem go away. Strange thing is that on both my laptop and my HTPC I have the NOD32 file monitor running and it has no problem with iTunes.

Anyway, now I know what it is I'll have to do some googling and see what else I can find out... or maybe switch to a better AV package (suggestions anyone?)

Cheers to all those who tried to help... it was much appreciated.

itunes sucks and so do pods
i rather get a generic mp3 player