kernel usage

[Guest]

I am running win98 se 4.1 and have no peripherals attached and when the machine is simply turned on and no extra programs are running the kernel usage is constantly at 100%. I have 64meg of ram and have a celeron intel 600mhz. Can someone help me to reduce the usage rate?

 

[AEboy128]

Try adding some memory. Memory is sooo cheap right now that it won't hurt. Here you can pick up a stick thats 256mb and pc-133 for $44. They will ship it anywhere in the us i dont kno what shipping is because i can go to their store cuz its local.

<A HREF="http://www.jncs.com/" target="_new">http://www.jncs.com/</A>

My system: <A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=8946" target="_new">http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?rigid=8946</A>

 

[crapple0]

or...go to www.pricewatch.com and get the same stick of ram for $19.

~Crapple0

"the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"

 

[Matisaro]

Cheap memory is not worth the 20 bucks you save in the long run, getting good warenteed name brand ram is a good idea.

~Matisaro~
"Friends don't let friends buy Pentiums"
~Tbird1.3@1.55~

 

[lhgpoobaa]

more memory will help, but not with your particular problem.
if processor usage is constantly at 100%, something is running.
things that could do that are:
1. some program/utility that runs in the background and is automatically started upon windows. usually its some program which is corruped somehow. try ctrl+alt+del and start terminating one application at a time. see if that helps.
programs which can do it are virus checkers/detectors, cpu cooling programs, memory cache monitoring programs, norton crash guard (god i hated that)...
P.S. i once had a corrupt explore.exe which would periodically do that.
2. if you use a cpu cooling program, some of them lock out cpu cycles, making your computer believe that its running at 100%.
3. malicious code. i once had a trojan wich also did that, but only when i logged onto the internet. it never did anything, cauz my net traffic was nill, but it still made everything go slow.
4. got something like seti@home running that you have perhaps forgotten about?
that can be set so it runs in the background and uses all your spare processing power.

If you have terminated everything visible and its still running at 100% let me know. i know Win98 task manager doesnt show everything, the one for win2k is MUCH better.

cheers from the Hamster

"i love the smell of Overclocking in the morning!" Says my Hamster.