Is my memory up the duff?

[joe2812]

Please forgive me for C&P'ing from the fora i've been using to try and fix this issue.

Having a few problems with my laptop which I can't seem to sort out. I am getting CPU spikes usually in the 80-100% region, usually 98-100. This seems most common whenever iTunes is running. I've never had this problem up until a few weeks ago.

I have avast! as my anti-virus, which I have disabled to try speed up my computer. I have run Ad-Aware, CCleaner and eWido and removed/quarantined anything that looks suspect. Also done HJT and removed the necessaries.

For example I currently have this firefox window open, one active MSN chat window, and i'm flicking at around 75%-90% CPU usage, with 43 processes.

The laptop is taking an age to flick between active windows, i'm typing faster than the window is writing it and it's generally a pain in t'arse to use.

The laptops vitals are:

Intel P4 3.2GHz
1024MB RAM
Win XP Home 5.1, SP2 (all updates installed).

Any ideas whats causing this?

The laptop is fine until I start iTunes, although as it stands it does take a lot longer to load up windows than it used to. Pretty sure it's since I upgraded to iT v6.

I have taken a screenshot which someone is kindly hosting for me at http://neoneko.co.uk/joe.jpg and heres what I was doing at each stage:

1. iTunes playing. No shuffle, just playing straight through.

2. One firefox window opened.

3. iTunes open with just the blank firefox page, no page loaded.

4. iTunes closed (notice the drop)

5. Only blank firefox window open

6. Navigate blank firefox page to Proon.

7. All active windows closed, only task manager remains. CPU at ~ 6%

It's been suggested a few times that it's my system up the duff... in which case i'm not too happy!

[Telstar]

I was having similar problems to you, running iTunes and Firefox, my CPU spikes were much more prolonged at 100%. I quadrupled my laptop memory and it is less common know. I also get it when viewing an online pdf document through firefox, when I hit the back button it maxs out the CPU and I have to close the browser to fix it.

[Saab Dastard]

Joe,

For about the same amount of money you can do one of the following:

Buy a second hard disk, replace your existing HD with the new one, do a clean install of the O/S (I assume you have access to installation CD), then progressively add back applications until the problem re-occurs. Of course, if the problem appears straight away then it probably IS your system. You can return your original disk to get back to your starting point.

The second approach is to buy RAM to replace what you have. If the system runs perfectly with the new (and you have changed nothing else), then it points to a RAM problem.

The point is to buy judiciously, so that you end up either with a RAM upgrade or a useful 2nd HD - or both!

My money is on a software issue. I find that webpages with Java scripts are a killer on my system, as the AV software goes into overdrive and everything stops for a couple of minutes, after which normal service is resumed.

Actually I just find that Java runs like a dog all the time! :yuk:

SD

[shuttlebus]

All,

I have quickly read thorugh the posts and have NOT viewed the screenshots, so my comments may be "in the next state", but here are my thoughts...

ITunes is probably decompressing your MP3's on the fly to play.... This could account for some of the processor load (Some MP3 palyers load the entire MP£, uncompressed into memory to reduce processor load on a song-by-song basis.

Have you tried usign Winamp etc to play MP3s and reviewed the processor load....

Feel free to disregard the comments as I am simply blue skying ideas....

Regards,

Shuttlebus

[joe2812]

Winamp is much much quicker.

However with that running and one firefox window open (this one...), i'm still at 60% and occasionally jumping to 100% which still seems a bit excessive for 1024 RAM?