100% CPU Help

[aidenrelkoff]

So my family has a pc for watching online shows and this pc is hooked up to our TV, so its like a PC but u can sit on your couch. Anyways its a old Xp machine, i build if from a week or so ago. it has like 5 programs on it, chrome, IE, Adobe flash/reader, java, and Avast. And before we used it, the HDD was wiped and i re-installed Windows and all the drivers, and yes all the parts are compatible. About 3 mins after we start it, the CPU goes from 3% to 12% then to 100% and it stays there forever until we restart. Both ram sticks are the same speed, all the drivers are up to date, and the cpu has plenty of thermal compound and lots of air movement. My dad even had some industrial thermal compound with copper and aluminum dust in it, no difference. Its a old noisy HDD that we have had problems with so i am suspecting that, but do any of you have any other ideas?

[Bad2049]

Specs would help.

[Excon]

Heat wouldn't cause your CPU usage to go up. To much thermal paste is actually worse than not enough just so you know and I would watch out for that stuff that your dad is using. It is highly conductive and would make some nice sparks if something where to happen.

[Purple]

can you show us your process explorer/ task manager

[Leonard]

Go to "start" then type "power options" in search, then in power options click on "Change plan settings" then click on "Change advanced power settings" then a new window will pop up then go scroll to "processor power management" and click on it then open "minimum processor state" and check if the value is at 5%. If not put it at 5% and then restart your PC and check if the problem is fixed.

[Cacao]

Go to your task manager then under process sort by CPU usage, there might be some sneaky software/malware using up your CPU.

[LogicalDrm]

Is Avast running active background checking? That could do it. Pic from task manager will help, but sort by ram usage instead. CPU usage may vary too much even though it runs at 100%.

[aidenrelkoff]

Is Avast running active background checking? That could do it. Pic from task manager will help, but sort by ram usage instead. CPU usage may vary too much even though it runs at 100%.

 

 

Go to "start" then type "power options" in search, then in power options click on "Change plan settings" then click on "Change advanced power settings" then a new window will pop up then go scroll to "processor power management" and click on it then open "minimum processor state" and check if the value is at 5%. If not put it at 5% and then restart your PC and check if the problem is fixed.

 

 

can you show us your process explorer/ task manager

 

I figured it out, it was trying to search for updates, and when it couldn't find any, it looked harder and allocated 100% of the cpu. Turning off automatic updates fixed it. If the problem still exists then i will try your thing Leonard

[Leonard]

I figured it out, it was trying to search for updates, and when it couldn't find any, it looked harder and allocated 100% of the cpu. Turning off automatic updates fixed it. If the problem still exists then i will try your thing Leonard

Cool.