Windows 7 - Wierd CPU usage spikes

Hello, I upgraded to windows 7 this past Friday, Dec 4. I went with doing the upgrade from vista 64bit over doing a fresh install to prevent re-installing programs and just laziness. The past 2 days or so I have been noticing some programs running slow, one such is Ventrilo. I did the troubleshoot compatibility to Vista and it works though sometimes it still lags. I decided to check my cpu usage at this time and it showed that the usage was at 100% and Physical mem at 33%. I didn't know what to do so I restarted my comp and everything seemed better.
Is there anything that could have caused the spike, something I can 'fix' to prevent it from happening again. I noticed that the HP Support Assistant thingy is really slow, maybe it isn't something I should have?
Sorry for possibly sounding vague. If needed I can provide system information and such and thank you ahead of time for the help.

Type msconfig in the start box, go to the startup tab, and take a screen shot and post it--or at least tell us what is checked on that tab.


Take a look at task manager when it is acting up to see what processes are taking a lot of CPU.

Hi thekid89 & welcome to Seven Forums

Unfortunately you're setting your self up for a fall by not clean installing. I know it's easier and quicker to upgrade but there really are less headaches this way.
Anyway, checking the startup tab in msconfig and unchecking/disabling any unnecessary items is a good place to start.

The HP Support Assistant thingy is probably redundant on your machine now as it was probably for your OEM Vista.

Keeping a close eye on the 'Rescource Monitor' to narrow down what is causing the CPU spike is also worth mentioning. That way, you can filter the process and see any associated handles,services & modules to further narrow it down.

Resource Monitor

I did as requested and took a look at the startup programs and got rid of some unneeded ones, it seems after the upgrade some programs must have been enabled again. I then took a look at the resource monitor and noticed that stacsv64.exe, which is IDT PC Audio, was taking up around 45-50% of the CPU usage. I checked around online and found an upgrade from HP, installed it, and things seem to be better now (it is now taking up ~1%). I'll try to keep this updated over the next few days and post any updates.

I was about to post stating that you might want to uninstall the old HP software/drivers and install the newest set from their website. I have always had problems with their update support program and no longer use it. I just check their web site ever few weeks to see if anything was updated.

Good news!

Keep us posted on what follows

I got another spike today. When I checked the resource monitor the stacv64.exe is running at 45-50% usage and the audiodg.exe flutters between 2 and 48% usage. I thought that the update I installed would have fixed this but obviously not. Any ideas as to why this would be happening?

I found another update that fixed the problem until today, right now to be precise. I noticed that the spike happened after opening my laptop out of hibernation. Any thoughts/ideas on how this could cause it if it is?

Edit: I restarted my computer and the problem seems to be 'fixed', which points towards the hibernate proposal above.

Another reason why I don't use Hibernate. I use the heck out of Sleep though!

What you might want to do is disable hibernation reboot, run disk defrag then turn hibernation back on reboot again and test. It might be the hibernation file is split up into different parts causing it to search the drive for everything it need to "wake" back up.