Massive CPU Spikes & System Hangs - HELP!!

[Jules48]

Desperately seeking some help here ......

My main audio rig has started going flakey on me over the last few days, having been rock solid for about 6 months. It's a dual 2.2GHz Xeon (Prestonia) machine on a Supermicro DC6 with 1GB of RD800 RAM, Win2K SP3.

Basically, it started hanging a couple of times a day a week or so ago, then these hangs got more frequent so that I could only work for short periods without a crash. So today, I reverted back to my backup system partition, thinking it had to be OS related or a corrupt driver.....

No joy. Here's the current state of play: straight after bootup, with no applications running, as many background processes disabled as possible, I am getting massive CPU spikes on CPU 1 about every 30 seconds. I can see them in the Task Manager->Performance box, and they're absolutely regular. When they ocurr the system also stops responding for a few seconds.

If this isn't an OS issue (I will reinstall from scratch if poeple are dead sure it's Windows), could it be the beginnings of a dodgy CPU, bad memory, or perhaps a heat problem? I've got another fan running just today in case heat was an issue. I don't think it is - Supero Doctor II shows the CPU's around 35 degrees and the system at 38 degrees - when I take the side off I'd say it's alot cooler than that - practically no heat buildup at all.

If anyone has any ideas - I'd be truly grateful.

Thx in advance

Jules

 

[lhgpoobaa]

hmmm
checked for viruses and Trojans yet?
tried going through your task manager and cancelling running apps?

but ermmm.... how can the CPU's be running cooler than the mobo and its surrounds?
Thats a thermodynamic impossibility.


<b>Anyone claiming they can see the difference
between 450 and 500 FPS in Quake3 deserves to
be severely beaten with a rock. </b>

 

[flamethrower205]

virus looks like a culprit. IRQ problem perhaps?

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

 

[Jules48]

Thanks guys - I scanned for viruses and all clean.

I'm scanning for Trojans now (takes a few hours) ....

Thanks again

 

[King_Synchro]

What DirectX version have you got?, the same sort of thing happened to me when I installed DX9 on my machine with XP, it might be something to do with the drivers or compatability's in DX, something might have gone currupt in it!, all I did was reinstall XP back to its DX 8.1 state and everything ran perfect again!

1 Set Of Morals For Sale, Never Used, Will Sell Cheap

 

[Jules48]

I'm still running 8.1 so I doubt it's DirectX. Thanks anyway.

 

[Pettytheft]

Besides viruses what apps have your recently installed. Have you recently patched anything as well? Also, when you have the task manager open check to see if it's a specific program that is giving you the spikes.

But, still looks like a virus.

Good luck

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.