Win XP All Processes Taking More & More CPU

[jadent]

Recently any application on my Windows XP Professional computer will just take up more and more CPU. Doesn't matter which application it is or which vendor its from the CPU will just continue to go up to the point the computer is not usable. I reformatted and put a fresh copy of Win XP on and the problem still exists.

I'm free of virus, spy and malware. I then installed TuneUp Utilities to see if it could help.

Any direction to help me uncover the problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[catgate]

It sound just like the sort of thing that used to happen when your hard drive needed a spring clean and a defrag. to make some more space available for virtual memory.

[Dencandy]

Also do you have enough RAM? You need at least 750 MBs for XP to run reasonably smoothly, preferably more.

[dc2000]

jadent, I have the same issue and it drives me nuts. Here're specs for my system:

CPU: AMD Athlon XP, 1144 MHz

RAM: 2048 MB (PC3200 DDR SDRAM)

Motherboard: Biostar M7NCD (5 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, LAN)

Video: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 (256 MB)

OS: Windows XP SP3

This system is about 5 years old and I agree that it might be outdated by today's standards, but when I bought it and installed Windows XP it was running like a charm. I've reinstalled XP 3 or 4 times since then (using the same Windows XP disc) and I also kept it clean from any unnecessary programs and constantly scanned for viruses. But, NONETHELESS, my system is now so slow that I'm ready to just give up.

I did some research and here's what I found (what's causing it to be so slow):

1. Your antivirus software. I'm using Microsoft Security Essentials, but it doesn't really matter. I went through AVG Free, as well as the host of other ones, and all of them slow down your system a big time. What happens is that any software that has a so-called "resident shield" or "live protection" injects itself into the kernel of the OS and acts as an intermediary for almost all system calls any other software tries to make. So every time any other program tries to do something your antivirus software intercepts it and tries to analyze it, which obviously takes time and slows down your system. It also seems to be a trend these days to make those antivirus/firewall programs more and more complex that slows down your system even more. Unfortunately there seems to be no workaround for this problem (well, apart from going to another maker/brand of the OS: Linux/OS X, Ubuntu, etc.) so the way everyone deals with it now is by buying faster PCs so that the slowing-down by an antivirus software is not as evident (for a while).

2. Microsoft released several service packs, that also slow down your system with their "fixes". That in a way may act as your antivirus software (read above). No workaround for this one either.

3. The web browser gets slower as well due to any plug-ins you may install into it. For example, the most "notorious" one is Flash (or Microsoft's version of it, called Silverlight). These days almost any major web site (from MySpace to Photobucket to Facebook) heavily relies on them, and the makers of those plug-ins (Adobe and Microsoft) are eager to respond with more and more "innovations" (translation: stuff that will slow down your computer). For instance, did you see the latest update for Adobe Flash? Well, they incorporated new 3D features into it, that are supposed to be hardware accelerated, but what happens when your (older) hardware is not supported? You guessed it, any website that needs a Flash plug-in (and that is about 80% of all the sites out there) will be slowing down your browser and thus your system. I was also hoping that some third-party browsers like Firefox, Opera and Google Chrome won't have this issue, but I was wrong. They are as bad as IE.

4. Any software you install may write itself into the Windows start-up and reside in the background when you boot up your system even when you didn't run it on purpose. Go to Start, then Run, type msconfig and switch to the Start-up tab and you'll see how much stuff is there. (Of course, it doesn't mean that you have to remove it all!) I'm just saying that so many programs like to put themselves there, or add some unnecessary background service process to your system, even though there might be no need for it. A workaround would be to uninstall any unnecessary software that you don't use.

OK, the bottom-line is simple. No one at Microsoft, or Adobe, or at any other corporation will be interested in fixing these issues since they are obviously interested in "us" buying new hardware/PC's to make it seem to go away for while. You're lucky that you don't play PC games, because then you'll know how often one needs to upgrade their system to keep up with the latest trends :) This seems to be an unfortunate truth about today's technology...

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

I have an old computer (since 2002) that runs Windows XP, and I never experienced any performance deterioration. All updates to all softwares are usually installed the day they are released. XP SP3 in fact showed a noticeable performance increase.

Some of the things I do to keep Windows running smoothly

• keep crap off my system (CCleaner)
  
• keep the startup list clean (Startup Inspector)
  
• defragment regularly (Diskeeper)
  

It goes without saying that there is no malware on the system.

P.S. I do not use dumbware like so-called "registry cleaners".

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

One thing you might check if you have an overheating problem (SpeedFan).

[-pops-]

My "favourite" computer is one I built ready for the launch of WXP. I still use it in preference to my other machines and it's (subjectively) just as fast now as it was when I built it.

I've never had to re-install the O/S although I have replaced the hard drive which wore out but the new drive was loaded with my Acronis backup thus effectively the same software. I've also replaced the fans which became somewhat noisy, the DVD drive which wore out and the keyboard (twice).

The machine is running about 16 hours a day, every day. It is also kept clear of software I don't want or need, is regularly scanned for malware and kept clear of rubbish with Ccleaner.