CPU requires defribulator
 

Here is a different problem. 'puter has slowed to a crawl.
Dell running Windows XP Home.
Using Windows Task Manager, it shows the Cpu and Kernel traces look like your worst ECG nightmare. The CPU often goes to 100% and stays there for a bit. During that bit the system essentially 'hangs up'.
During all of this activity there seems to be little noise from the hard drive.
The file page usage seems normal; increasing over time depending on the sites that have been searched.
Any thoughts about a fix before I call the nerds.:ugh:

In the task manager click on the processes tab. Click on the CPU column twice so the processes using the highest %age of CPU time are at the top. The list should be constantly changing with the System Idle Process at the top in a PC that is running OK. THe offending process will probably be consuming greater than 50% of the CPU time all the time. Make a note of the process name and highlight it and press End Process. If that improves the performance you then need to stop the process starting in the first place. Depending on the process there is a variety of ways of doing this. If it is easily identifiable - stop the program starting, if not it may require a bit of detective work.

AV software is frequently a culprit.

Especially when you have "on access" scanning enabled. E.g. every time Java is invoked, a 100MB file is scanned.

SD

A littel less.
 

The culpirt was iexplore.exe. Stopping that process of course shut down IE. On loading IE again the usage is about 1/2 (121k vs 225k) ScanningProcess.exe is now at the top of the list. Scan is still fluttering although not topping out at 100%.
Have restored to earlier date; done virus scan, registry check, etc.
Thanks for the pointer.

iexplore.exe is essentially Internet Explorer, as you've found.

One thing you can check is whether you have any BHOs added into IE. To do this, go to the Tools menu, and choose Manage Add-ons. Disable anything suspicious, and see whether your performance improves. Also ensure you disable toolbars as a priority and see if you get performance back :ok:

Zone Alarm Corrpupted ?
 

ScanningProcess.exe is part of Zone Alarm Anit Virus component,
and can also cause the problem you have been experiencing.

Google comes up with several references including :
ZA and "scanningprocess.exe" at 95% - WorldStart Message Boards

From 2004 : If you're running ZA, check out their own Technical Support
ZoneAlarm by Check Point - Award winning PC Protection, Antivirus, Firewall, Anti-Spyware, Identity Protection, and much more.

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d1.../Coconutty.jpg

No comment :oh:

I had a constant 25% usage until I disabled 'Windows search' in the services tab of system config.

No Zone Alarm
 

Not aware of ever having loaded Zone alarm.
It is not in my list of applications. No icon.
Checked with my ISP and it is not part of their security system.
ScanningProcess.exe generally appears at the top of the process list.:ugh:

Yes, that is a very good tip from Vista on. :ok:

aspinwing:

If you didn't install Zone alarm something, or somebody, did. You might want to get rid of it by going to Control Panels -> Add or Remove Programs and then uninstall it from the list shown.

As far as IE being a resource pig (surprise, surprise) get Firefox. Or Opera. Or Apple's Safari. Or anything but IE!