Posted on 10/23/2014 7:40:39 AM PDT by Sherman Logan
I have a Dell notebook that's about 5 years old. Windows 7.
It works fine most of the time, but every few hours it goes into a mode where the CPU goes straight to 100% usage and stays there, making it unusable.
Sometimes it self corrects after 15 minutes or an hour, or sometimes I have to do a hard reboot.
Then it works fine again for a while.
Any suggestions?
Format the hard drive and re-install windows.
I have looked in Event Viewer to see what kind of warnings the system is displaying. It can tell you if something is amiss.
Question about cleaning the vents. Isn’t the method you suggest simply blowing the dust deeper into the laptop?
I know I need to clean my vents but really don’t know my options besides for a can of air.
That's likely at least half your problem.
probably your virus scan running but check the task manager to see who is eating the cpu
if you do not have a solid state hard drive (and you probably don't), buy a good defrag product and use it periodically - i use raxco’s perfect disk - they have a free trial and it can even defrag your paging file
also use an optimization program - i use pcmatic - subscription is good for 5 computers
since you have had a virus, download malwarebytes (free version) and run it - it catches many problems and lots of nerds use it as a first step when fighting a virus
i’d do this
run windows update
run pcmatic, letting it update outdated programs, clean your registry, delete the temp files, cached files and such, shutdown crapware, update drivers, etc.
reboot and wait at least 10 minutes to let windows settle down
run perfect disk standalone
run perfect disk for the paging files and files in use that cannot be moved
then i’d probably run the perfect disk defrag again after windows settles down from its reboot
run malwarebytes
but if you are running norton, probably best to just slash your wrists and buy a new pc
True to some extent. You can always take off some of the screws to take off the plastic bottom cover and do a fuller cleaning. Doing burst blasts on the CPU, at least, will unclog that dust that raises the temp on the CPU, which degrades not only your windows experience, but the life of the cpu.
But it makes that way kewl whizzing sound when I zoom it with the air compressor !
Thanks, Gipper.
I wondered if I could take a vacuum hose and place it above the vent which I thought would pull all the dust out?
There’s an Indian guy from the windows support team who calls me weekly to help fix my computer. I will give him your number if you like. :) (he he)
also - when in the task manager, click the ‘cpu’ label at the top to sort the tasks - click once and the lowest task using the cpu is listed first - click it again and the highest is listed first - or verse vica stuff
Call up al baby, find out if his beeber is stuned, then find a moose and serve cheese to your sister...but do not take a shower, lest you miss something.
(I think that's how it goes.)
Kind of drastic before we even identify the problem...
Eh. The power on those things could damage the fan. You could try it, but at your own risk and as gently as you can and see if it helps.
BFL
don’t do that to the PC, buy a vuvuzela to play with
And really hard to do on a Mac....
instead of this /s And besides, those horns are about 5 octaves lower, tho the two together might make an interesting duet .. lol
If you can compose some music with it, post it on Youtube.
Try going to tools, add ons and for something unfamiliar.
I just caught something there that I never accepted. Was making beeping sounds on my machine.
I disabled then removed.
Rebooted and it all went away.
Also System restore might work.
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