CPU usage goes to 100% during game

[Jet Set Daryoon]

Normally, when I'm just browsing the web, maybe with a few other applications up, my CPU usage is anywhere between 2 and 7 percent. The other day, when I installed Starcraft, and went to play it, after being in a game for about a minute, all of a sudden, it lags up really bad, and my CPU usage goes all the way up to 100%. I tried another game(Civilization 3), and it does the same thing, although it takes about 10-15 minutes before it does it. I'm at a loss for what's causing it. I don't believe it's any sort of overheating, because(according to SpeedFan) my PC is running at 40* C.

My system specs are:
1.8 GHz P4
512 MB DDR RAM
Geforce3 Ti200 64 MB
Windows XP
Motherboard is a motherboard w/ ethernet and sound integrated into it(came with the computer(a Compaq), not sure what the model would be).

[BustedAvi]

i dont think its anything technical unless its a virus... are you running your games online? if so look for processes such as dllhost.exe (Welchia worm) taking up all the cpu usage...

If its not some technical its probobly ur ram, is it all in one stick? Maybe ts fried? Any funny power outages or things like that?

[John Prophet]

Welcome to the forum!

First off before you worry too much about hardware issues..do this.

1) go to www.antivirus.com and run the free scan (do this even if you already have antivirus software installed etc.

2) download, install and update "adaware 6" for www.lavasoftusa.com

cuz it sounds almost like a trojan or some mean spyware sort of deal.

JP

[Jet Set Daryoon]

I ran a virus scan(both Norton and the online one), and they didn't find anything, and I regularly run Ad-Aware

And BustedAvi, I highly doubt it has anything to do with RAM. My RAM usage doesn't go up considerably after going into a game, it's my CPU that skyrockets to 100%. But, to answer your question, I'm not running them online when it does this, and I looked, and found no dllhost.exe, and it's 2 sticks of RAM.

[RicheemxX]

100% cpu usage is not abnormal the lag is where your concern shoul be palced. Do you have all the updated drivers for your video card motherboard and everything else.? Might check your video settings in bios to make sure you ahve everyhting set-up 100%. One other note is power supply problems. When your running games, apps ect it puts your power supply under more load and might be under powering somewhere.

[bailey]

you might want to also try spybot

[Starfury_2260]

defintely get spybot it and adaware both find things the other dont.

[rrcn]

You shouldnt be worried about the 100% CPU usage. That is normal for newer games. It might also be your audio settings in the game. They may be incorrectly set. Check out Richee's comments, thats prolly where your problems at.

Good Luck.

[rande]

If you've tried all of the above and nothings worked, the next thing to try is to see if:
a) is there some corrupted file running loose in the background,
b) is the machine simply bogged down with too many apps. running concurrently.

First, hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and look at the Task Manager processes to see if any odd item is bogging down the processor. If it's just the game doing that, I wouldn't be surprised, but that's normal. Games do that. I would look for some other file and if there is one, make a note of it's name. It could be useful in the next step.

The next thing I would do is run Msconfig and either un-check the "Load startup items" under the General tab, or hit the Startup tab on the far right then selectively un-check the various programs which start at boot time.

Reboot then see if the problem still occurs. If not then you know that either too many things are running at one time, or one of the programs you prevented from starting has a problem and needs to be uninstalled or reinstalled.

This method works for me most of the time, and if there is a virus, spyware, or simply a corrupted file, you can narrow down your list of checked items till the one you're looking for becomes apparent.

-Rande-

[MTAtech]

I've got the same problem.

I reformated an old PC in the office and installed XP Pro. It also has acted slow after a while. The task mgr indicates 99% usage on dllhost.exe.

I scanned for viruses - none.

Anybody know what the dllhost.exe does?