re: Do you have a 20-40% CPU problem and have an NVIDIA graphics card?
Sunday, July 2, 2006 at 3:56 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Swidge
(1 messages posted)
If you are experiencing a 20-40% drain with spoolsv.exe involved and are using an
NVIDIA graphics card this may well solve your problem. I know it's long but it may
be worth it and solved the same problem for me.
- I had the exact same problem that DUstin described (see below). My CPU
usage was between 30-40% whilst running idle. spoolsv.exe was taking about 20-30%.
Csrss.exe was also running high for no apparent reason. My printer spool was empty,
and my virus checks had come up negative. I also have a brand new dual core machine.
- However I have now solved the problem. I found that the problem actually
lay in an NVidia graphics card driver, and this was somehow affecting these other
unrelated processes. If you have a process called nvsvc.exe in your task manager
and especially if it is showing any CPU activity then this may well be the cause
of your problem, as it was for me.
- A way to definitively check if this is the source of the drain is to right-click
on the 'My Computer' icon and select 'manage' from the drop down list.
- Open 'Services and Applications' on the bottom of the left hand list.
then click on 'Services'.
A list of services that begin when you start your computer is displayed.
- Look for 'NVIDIA Display Driver Service'.
Double click on this and you are presented with anoher window displaying the service's
properties.
- Near the bottom of the 'General' tab you should find a section entitled
'Service status:'. It should say 'started'.
Now simply click on the 'Stop' button. (Note this is completely reversable if you
are worried.)
- This will stop the service. Once it has finished stopping the service,
it'll probably take a few seconds and will briefly display a progress bar, open the
task manager and your CPU usage problem should be gone. Mine was.
- If this did not solve your problem, then click on the 'Start' button and
the service will start again and I'm sorry that this did not solve your problem.
- However, if this did solve your problem, then this shows that there is
a problem with part of your NVIDIA driver.
- The best move is to download a new driver. Unfortunately I can't help
you much there unless your machine was a Dell. If it was, you should be able to find
an NVIDIA driver package appropriate to your graphics card available to download
on their website. I did this and installed the new drivers. This ended my problem.
- If your machine was not a Dell, then you should be able to find a driver
package either on the NVIDIA website or on the website of your machine's manufacturer.
Installing these driver packages should sove your problem, but I have kept the driver
installer in case the problem returns, but it has been working fine for over a week
now, I'm just being cautious.
- A temporary solution would be to disable the service from starting with
your computer by using the drop down menu directly above the 'service status' section
of the service properties winow. This will solve your problem but will not fix the
problem with the NVIDIA driver. I did this for a couple of days and didn't notice
any difference in my graphics card's perforance so I'm not entirely sure what this
service spends it's time doing. However the method I've described above solved my
problem completely.
- If this solved you problem then I'm glad to have helped, if not then
I'm sorry I wasted your time and good luck finding a solution to your particular
problem.
On Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 12:31 pm, DUstin wrote:
>spoolsv.exe is constantly using about 20-30% of my dual core CPU. The thing is brand
>new, less than a day old, has nothing whatsoever under the printers or fax in control
>panel, has nothing in the printer folder in system32, no print tasks waiting on
any
>other computer on my network, used trend micro virus scan, mcafee, spybot, ad-aware,
>system is clean. One other slightly unrelated detail is that it seems that its always
>using about 30% of my computers CPU when im doing nothing, if its not all due to
>the spoolsv.exe (which it often is) its due to csrss.exe
|
All messages in this thread [show all]
 |  |  | re: Do you have a 20-40% CPU problem and have an NVIDIA graphics card? (Swidge: Sun, Jul 2, 2006, 3:56 pm) |
| |
| |
| |
Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum
|
|
