New
#11
Aqqad, I think we may be onto something here...
Earlier, whs had asked if you ever identified the processes that are running when the problem occurs. Have you done that? Here is how:
1) Right click the taskbar and select "Start Task Manager"
2) When Task Manager starts, select the "Processes" tab and then click the button at the bottom "Show processes from all users".
3) When all of the processes display, click on the "CPU" column once. This will sort the running processes by how much CPU they are using and bring them to the top of the list. Watch the programs that tend to come to the top (meaning they are using CPU). Hopefully, the "culprit" program will remain at the top indicating how much CPU it is eating. Once you see which processes are using CPU, make sure you write them down.
Can you identify the process by its image name so that you know what software it comes from? Perhaps if you took a screenshot and posted it here we could help you figure it out.
So, staying with my theory that it could be your video capture (tv card), and you state that the processor usage maxing out or displaying variable usage at odd times, this could very well be the video capture software.
What software do you use? (i.e., GB-PVR? Windows Media Center? SageTV? etc)
What happens with this software is that it works like a satellite or cable TV guide. It downloads the guide information for you automatically and updates a database. Then, when you want to watch TV, the guide is available and provides information out to several weeks. Do you see how that might take some CPU usage when you start your computer? As soon as the computer starts, the video capture software will go out to the Internet to retrieve the guide information. Keep in mind the video capture software is using a database which can be CPU intensive as it updates the guide.
Also, if you watch TV using this software, have you selected any programs to record? If so, when you are not using the computer to watch TV, it will still record the shows you have selected at the time they are on. This may appear to be a random event to you while you are doing something else on your computer. This will REALLY be CPU intensive as the computer downloads the TV show and re-encodes it to whatever saved format the video capture software uses. From what I understand, the software does not always re-encode and saves the TV show BUT just the fact that it is downloading it and updating the database will eat your CPU (not to mention your bandwidth).
My whole point here is that the video capture software is running the whole time your computer is on (unless you disable it). The idea is that, if you are going to use your computer to watch TV, the software wants to keep the TV guide updated and record the shows you want it to record when they are on.
I know this is a lot of reading but I hope it helps!