High CPU useage: no obvious cause

[bbulger]

Strange high CPU useage symptoms started today after 1.5 years of little or no problems on my HP Pavillion desktop Athlon 64 X2 4400+ dual-core with 4GB RAM running Vista Home Premium.

After startup, "idling" CPU useage is now always 30-70%, before was <10%. Main culprit in Task Manager / Processes tab is the svchost.exe process that hosts the DcomLaunch and PlugPlay services. BUT, also a wmplayer.exe process sometimes appears and disappears every 1-2 seconds too quickly to try to stop it (with 10-20% CPU useage of its own.)

Things that didn't work:
1. stopping DCOM or P&P (stop was grayed out, even when logged in as the super admin.)
2. System Restore (tried 3 different restore points, but always got a "System Restore failed to complete successfully: no files or settings were changed.")
3. GRC.com's "DCOM-Bobulator" freeware to disable DCOM didn't do anything (maybe doesn't work for Vista.)

I really wanted System Restore to work because the only system change I know of that might coincide with the problem was the Windows Update yesterday (or maybe the bigger one 3 days ago).

Help, before my CPU fan wears out!

Bret

 

[pat mcgroin]

goto administrative tools|realiability and performance manager.
click on the realiability monitor on the left side.
Then go through the suspected dates to determine which updates were installed and write them down.

Then goto control panel|programs and on the left click view installed up dates.
When you find the ones you want right click to uninstall.

While you are in the control panel goto securtiy and turn automatic updates off.
Then when you go to update it will allow you to read and select which updates to install.
Its better because of situations like this in that if windows decides to pound some updates on to your system you cant tell which one is causing the problem.
By selecting them yourself you can control which ones and how they are installed.
It is always better to put one or two on at a time and test out your system before adding more.

 

[bbulger]

Thanks for the very good suggestions! My results so far:
- I uninstalled every element of the last 2 Windows Updates, one by one with restarts in between: no help. (This takes my system back to Apr 27, well before the problem began on May 2.)
- I rolled back the Realtek Audio driver update from the same update: no help.
- I uninstalled the driver for my NVideo PCIe video card and reverted back to onboard graphics: no help.
- I disabled every startup program (including AVG free and ZoneAlarm free) and restarted: no help.
- I looked thru every device in device manager for any drivers that were updated recently: nothing but the ones above.
- I forgot to mention I had already run a virus & malware scan with AVG: nothing found.
- The only thing that kills the problem so far is starting in Safe Mode, so I know it's one of those several dozen processes that Safe Mode leaves out (gee, thanks!)

I'm rapidly running out of ideas, except to restore my latest hard drive image backup from before the problem started. I'm a little afraid of that: I've never tried to restore an image of the entire hard drive: system, data, and all. Any cautions to be aware of?

Thanks again!

 

[pat mcgroin]

try to go into WMPlayer and turn off anything that will allow it to connect and see if that helps any.