Performance issue with my system

Recently while using my laptop (Dell XPZ15z) all of a sudden the CPU usage is spiking to 80-100% then will drop in say 5-7 sec. I am not running any application or process that requires such CPU usage.

I am doing a lot of online gaming, while playing the same thing happens but the additional things happening are that the ping becomes 1500+ all of a sudden from 90-130 and then its showing network connection problem. Then I regain connection again in 5-7 sec. But now i noticed its the same time while my CPU usage is going above 80%.

Another incident that occurred is that while I was watching an YouTube video, all of sudden the video began to hang even though it was buffered earlier. Then the video stopped further playing and I saw that the CPU usage was way beyond 80 nearly 100%.

I increased the virtual page memory to almost 10 GB in all the drives. But it seems to have no effect as the problem continues. I have up to date anti-virus (Avast) and I scanned the whole system but no virus also have been found.

My system configuration is as follows:

Intel Core i7-2640M 2.80GHz
8Gb DDR2(4*2)
750Gb HDD
Nvidia 525M graphics card

Krishna Chandran

Posted 2013-10-09T15:37:28.480

Reputation: 113

capture a xperf trace when you have the issue and upload it: http://pastebin.com/pgE11HRD

– magicandre1981 – 2013-10-09T17:46:54.917

@magicandre1981:i am using windows 7... – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-10T08:03:17.350

@magicandre1981:These are some snapshots of CPU usage while the problem occurred. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BweeVUiqmiuQWDloY1o5dTBfQWc/edit?usp=sharing https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BweeVUiqmiuQc2gxNEdjSUZ6NUk/edit?usp=drive_web

– Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-10T08:11:54.160

Krishna, first of all, the green line in the Task Manager is just user time which doesn't need to have any impact on other running processes. More important would be the red line which shows kernel times (can be enabled in the options menu). You should also look for the process or service responsible for this because *obviously there is a process running that causes so much load*. – Joey – 2013-10-10T08:31:11.697

Try using the Process Explorer tool from SysInternals (via Microsoft) as this gives much more information about running processes: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx

– Richard Lucas – 2013-10-10T08:41:56.307

I need the xperf files. The graphs don't help. – magicandre1981 – 2013-10-10T17:46:55.503

@Joey:Ya obviously i looked in the process tab but i couldn't find any process taking so much memory. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T09:06:26.677

@Richard:Thankz for the info bro.Let me try it. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T09:07:09.447

@Joey:I have installed it.If you could specify what should i look for it in particular, it will be more helpful. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T09:10:57.800

Answers

If your high CPU usage is not being caused by malware, as you already mentioned in your question, then your laptop may have an overheating issue. You can check this by installing a CPU temperature monitoring application like SpeedFan.

If your CPU temperature is too high that might mean that it is time to bring your laptop to a computer repair technician for routine maintenance to clean out the dustballs from the aluminum cooling block under the CPU fan. Or else as a temporary fix you can put an external laptop cooling pad underneath your laptop.

karel

Posted 2013-10-09T15:37:28.480

Reputation: 11 374

I am using a laptop cooling pad also the laptop works in an AC room.But while gaming the laptop gets overheated sometimes.But the problem, is for instance i just started to game now say about 5 min back but still the problem occurred about 5 times or so. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T09:00:39.707

Have you tried installing an application to monitor the CPU temperature? This would give you more information that would help you decide whether it is worthwhile to have the aluminum cooling block cleaned, which is a routine and inexpensive maintenance job. – karel – 2013-10-11T09:15:12.160

:Thanks for the reply.I had one earlier now i don't have one.I will install one and inform you the details. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T10:29:51.980

I have had some experience with a Dell XPS laptop. A CPU temperature of 42-56 degrees C is normal for this laptop under conditions of normal use, more than that when playing a game. A CPU temperature of more than 70 degrees is too hot. – karel – 2013-10-11T11:13:45.277

:As i have mentioned i am using i7 so temp normally is in the range of 50-65.Now i have noted that during the problem the temp was 1st core-81 deg 2nd core-83 deg and the GPU temp was 63 deg. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T11:54:56.617

Even for a Core i7 your normal usage CPU temperature is high and a temperature of 81 degrees is too high. On my laptop such a high CPU temperature would trigger my temperature monitoring application to sound an alarm and display a message box asking me to close any open applications and shutdown the computer. Routine cleaning to remove any dustballs in the aluminum cooling block by a computer technician takes about a half hour. – karel – 2013-10-11T12:08:20.340

Now when i encountered the problem and i checked CPU temp and it was 92 deg. But then i put on AC and the temp became almost 64 deg but still i encountered that problem but fora very small span as compared to earlier.So will it be of the temp problem. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-11T19:16:44.967

No, it will not be a temporary problem. It will not go away by itself, so you have to do what is necessary to fix it as I mentioned in previous comments. – karel – 2013-10-11T20:36:40.597

Ok :).I will take it to the nearest service center as soon as possible. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-12T07:07:56.823

I forgot to mention that all my drives are full (free near 1GB only) except C drive.It has more than 50Gb free.Will it cause this problem?Also i have a lot of video files in my system.Will that be a problem for the performance of the system? – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-12T07:10:16.570

The free space on the hard disk drive affects performance. The fuller the hard disk gets, the slower the performance. There are many different opinions about the optimal amount of free space. The most commonly used figure is to leave 15% of the hard disk space free, especially if it is your operating system disk. – karel – 2013-10-12T07:25:29.003

But i would like to mention that i have assigned 10Gb of virtual page memory from all the drives. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-12T07:30:02.640

thankz for the help.Now i am lukin forward to clean the aluminum cooling block cleaned. – Krishna Chandran – 2013-10-14T21:13:12.620

I have solved my PC performance issue by disabling all unwanted start up programs(i had a lot of start up programs) which were running in background using the physical memory.I also deleted a lot of extensions and plugins in browser which were unused.

I ran a complete system scan with avast.Then i installed "Super Anti Spyware" which was useful in removing a lot of tracking cookies and other unwanted stuffs spying on us.I also installed "Malwarebytes Anti-Malware" and removed a lot of unwanted registry key entries and other malwares.

Now the system is performing well.Now for better performance and reducing temp. of the system i would have aluminum cooling block cleaned by giving to service center.

Krishna Chandran

Posted 2013-10-09T15:37:28.480

Reputation: 113