Sluggish UI & High CPU usage

[SailingNut]

I've noticed quite a bit of "hesitation" in the Windows 7 UI compared to Vista. I've been looking at my CPU usage and it also seems high.

I've been looking at task manager to see what processes seem to be using a lot of CPU and I can't quite pin it down to a single process that seems to be hogging the CPU when things are sluggish.

Any good suggestions foe next steps on troubleshooting this?

I've given some thought to it being my Nvidia drivers. Anyone else out there running the 191.07 drivers and seeing similar problems? (FYI I'm running an Nvidia 8800 GTS card)

TIA!

 

[Jonathan_King]

Often times anti-virus software can use a lot of resources. Can you post a screenshot of the task manager?

 

[SailingNut]

Here's a shot of my task manager attached

 

[Jonathan_King]

What security software do you use?

 

[SailingNut]

Using Kaspersky antivirus.

I have been watching things more closely and I see that when I browse to a new page in IE8 it's CPU jumps to 30-50% In Outlook when I switch folders in my e-mail it uses 50% or more of the CPU. Also starting a game from the games folder causes explorer to jump to around 50%

I've never really watched my CPU so closely so those number could be normal, but they seem awfully high to me.

 

[logicearth]

The CPU jumping to 50% is normal when an application is doing something. What matters is how long it is at 50%. Since you have a dual-core processor, 50% means one thread is executing on one core. 100% would be two threads are using both cores.

Try disabling or uninstalling your antivirus for the time being, and/or download any updated drivers you can find.

 

[SailingNut]

I also have a "dual core" CPU monitor gadget running and it shows both cores jumping up quite high from time to time, but since it doesn't show processes I can't correlate it with any particular one.

I just did a check and when I open a new tab in IE both cores jump to 100% at a point and they are both over 75% for 2-3 seconds before the new tab finally opens. I also see the same thing happen when opening a game from the games folder.

Any ideas what i can do to dig in farther to see what might be causing this to happen? (It seems quite excessive to take several seconds to open a new tab or a game.)

 

[logicearth]

Don't worry about the jump in CPU usage. The CPU usage is going to jump like that because well...you have to use the CPU to do anything. Did you try disabling your antivirus? Cause you know a lot of them want to scan everything that you click on.

 

[SailingNut]

Understood that the CPU does have to do the work.

I disabled my AV and the sypmtoms are still there. (I didn't have this sort of problem under Vista even with AV enabled)

I timed it out and when opening solitaire from the games folder and the CPU is over 75% for about 11 seconds. It hits 100% just as the UI is drawn for the game and stays there for a second or two after the UI us drawn. It then hovers in the 95% range for a few seconds.

 

[Jonathan_King]

You seem to have a lot of processes running. The sheer number of tasks it has running can also contribute.

 

[SailingNut]

I'll go over the processes I have running & see if I can pare the list down a bit.

The thing that is bothering me is that the only real change is upgrading from Vista to 7 and a new version of Nvidia drivers. So, my focus is on the things that have most recently changed. But you are right some of the programs might not behave as well with 7 as they did with Vista

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Just as a comparison for you, I started Solitaire, and my CPU usage jumped to a maximum of 16% for maybe 1 second, and then immediately dropped to 5, and dropped to 2 within 5 seconds of first poking the solitaire icon.

This is on a Core 2 Duo 6600 with 4 GB of RAM, probably a mid-level PC by today's standards.

 

[SailingNut]

Just as a comparison for you, I started Solitaire, and my CPU usage jumped to a maximum of 16% for maybe 1 second, and then immediately dropped to 5, and dropped to 2 within 5 seconds of first poking the solitaire icon.

Thanks for the comparison info!

This is on a Core 2 Duo 6600 with 4 GB of RAM, probably a mid-level PC by today's standards.

Mine is a Core 2 Duo E6400 with 3 Gigs of ram. So not too different on hardware but seems to be quite different on observed performance.