Excessive CPU Usage

[jek1862]

Usually my hard drive is quiet, but lately is whirring along, so I investigated Task Manager to see what might be causing the activity. I examined all the Processes carefully and the CPU Usage. Over time, what I will describe is using 10-40% CPU Usage and goes as high as 50-70% usage briefly at times. The items that are creating this usage are:

SearchFilterH...

Search Indexe...

Search Protoc...

They are in 'SYSTEM' and 'Microsoft'

Can you tell me what may be going on, why these processes are active, and what I can do to correct the situation. Also giving me the full names of the processes listed would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[dogman_1234]

These are normal commands processed by the CPU. What is your CPU?

 

[jek1862]

These are normal commands processed by the CPU. What is your CPU?

I assume you mean what is my Processor (sorry I am not that computer literate), it is: AMD Sempron Processor 2600+,1599 Mhz, 1 Core, 1 Logical Processor.
I got this from my System Information. I am running Vista Ultimate. If this is not what you wanted tell me how to find it out please.
You say these are normal commands processed by the CPU. But why are they using up CPU? Is the percentages I quote "normal usage"? And if you could tell me what those three commands are spelled out in full I would appreciate it. Thanks.

 

[dogman_1234]

they are using up the CPU so much is because of the processor and how low powered it is. A Sempron running Vista? That is like taking you and having you swallow a gallon of marshmallows all at one. Too much stress on the CPU.

I would get a new computer. You cannot really just replace the CPU now.

 

[saaiello]

I would just run XP or Win 7 I would not say you need a new computer if it suits your needs. If you just use it to go online and watch youtube videos then really you do not need much more then that. The problem is windows vista is a bloated and heavy OS that is why you used to see OEMs like Dell were selling vista systems with huge amounts of memory.

You might need to get some more RAM if you have less then 2GB of memory, vista gets really bogged down and forces way to many writes and reads to the hard drive which can slow your system down to a crawl.

If you can post your full system specs if you do not know them download a free version of everest and post back with the full specs of your system.

 

[voltagenic]

those processes are there and running because you have windows search enabled in your services. You can disable these processes to help free up ram/cpu usage. BTW it's not really mandatory to run these processes, they just run in the background indexing your files, so when you go to your search bar and type something, it finds what you want faster/instantaneously.....disabling this DOES NOT make the search feature of windows vista/7 faster or slower, I have never noticed at difference at least, except a couple less processes and less load

click run, or on your search bar type:
"services" and press enter
once that page opens up, sort by name and scroll down to "windows search" and double click
when that window pops up, click "stop"
go up to start up type and set it to "disabled"
click apply and then ok.

I also verified this using a friends computer on win 7, by opening up task manager, clicking stop and watching those processes close at the same time.

ONE more thing, try using a program called gamebooster, even if you do not video game.

http://www.iobit.com/gamebooster.html

It closes background processes, and frees up ram in 1 click and its free. For your system and being that you run vista, I'd highly reccomend it.