Before I get to the problem, I'll give a little bit of history.  I was on my computer 
playing an online game about 2 weeks ago, when it froze out of the blue.  It was 
not responding to anything, so I hit the reset button on the tower and walked away 
for a while.  When I came back, the screen was completely black.  I hit reset again 
and watched it boot up this time, and I don't remember if it got to the Windows logo 
screen, but either immediately before or after that screen, it just went black and 
did nothing.

I tried to do a repair with my Windows CD, but after I would specify what Windows 
instance I wanted to repair (I only have one but it asked anyway) I would get an 
IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD.  After googling that for a while, it looked like it 
might be my RAM that was messed up, so I downloaded the Ultimate Boot CD, booted 
into the Windows environment on the CD, and ran a RAM test for 36 hours, which came 
back with a clean bill of health.

So I restarted my computer again and walked away, and when I came back after a while, 
Windows was miraculously back up again.  However, the computer's CPU usage is stuck 
at 100%.  I have used process explorer to check things out, and it looks like Explorer.exe 
is taking up about 35-45% of the CPU, and then System.exe takes up whatever is remaining. 
 I have checked out all of the subprocesses of System.exe and all of them are in 
the System32 folder and none seem to be suspicious.

I have disconnected every peripheral on my computer, including my video card, sound 
card, all cd drives, and my 2 extra hard drives that were used for data storage.

I did not have any anti-virus software or anti-spyware software because the computer 
is only a month or two old and I was just being lazy getting around to it.  I built 
the computer myself, and up until it froze, I never had any problems with it.

So here's a quick rundown of what i've tried and some of my thoughts:

- I have tried to do a Windows Restore and roll back to before this happened, but 
that didn't help.
- The system becomes slow on boot up when I see the Window Logo screen with the green 
progress bar below.
- It is completely unusable.  It takes a minute or two just to get the start menu 
to show up after clicking on it.  It is extremely, extremely slow.
- The lowest i've seen the CPU drop down to is 93%, but it's almost always stuck 
at 100%, even when in safe mode.
- I have run a scan on the hard drive, which did not return any errors.
- I have 2 Gigs of RAM and I have a RAM monitoring program that tells me that I have 
plenty of RAM free, so I don't think that's part of the problem.
- I have opened the computer and checked and double checked every single connection 
to make sure everything is plugged in properly and securely.
- I have not run HJT, but will get around to it soon (Copying a file over from a 
thumb drive takes about a half hour when it's all said and done.)
- I have tried booting up with Last Known Good Configuration to no avail.
- When I boot up into the mini Windows Environment that is on the Universal Boot 
CD that I made (bcd4win.com), it still runs extremely slow and the CPU is still stuck 
at 100%.
- I have checked the temperature of my CPU and I don't remember what it is but I 
do remember googling around and seeing that it was in a normal range, so I don't 
believe heat is an issue.  Plus, I have a huge fan on it.

I am completely out of ideas.  I could try to format my hard drive, but I don't want 
to lose everything and i'm afraid that it won't solve anything anyway.

I think my next step is going to be disconnecting my hard drive, plugging in one 
of my other hard drives that are used strictly for data, and try to install Windows 
on one of those and see how the system responds.


Does anyone have any clue as to what might be wrong?  I have looked all over the 
web and none of the suggestions I have seen seem to help me.  PLEASE let me know 
if you have any ideas, this is the most frustrating problem!!

Thanks!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Hi Bob Lauer

"...I did not have any anti-virus software or anti-spyware software ...."

Firewall active? No protection + On line games . . . . 

Needs to be checked out with a range of updated programs, any cleanups done and then 
proper protection installed and used  

Other things to check - 

Drivers 
Event Viewer 

Just a possibility - guess you checked the list here - 

http://aumha.org/a/stop.htm

I assume system worked normally in the past -

Did you check back on things that happened/ changed recently that may have caused 
the problem?   

David







On Saturday, October 13, 2007 at 10:28 am, Bob Lauer wrote:

>Before I get to the problem, I'll give a little bit of history.  I was on my computer 

>playing an online game about 2 weeks ago, when it froze out of the blue.  It was 

>not responding to anything, so I hit the reset button on the tower and walked away 

>for a while.  When I came back, the screen was completely black.  I hit reset again 

>and watched it boot up this time, and I don't remember if it got to the Windows 
logo 

>screen, but either immediately before or after that screen, it just went black and 

>did nothing.

>

>I tried to do a repair with my Windows CD, but after I would specify what Windows 

>instance I wanted to repair (I only have one but it asked anyway) I would get an 

>IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL BSOD.  After googling that for a while, it looked like it 

>might be my RAM that was messed up, so I downloaded the Ultimate Boot CD, booted 

>into the Windows environment on the CD, and ran a RAM test for 36 hours, which came 

>back with a clean bill of health.

>

>So I restarted my computer again and walked away, and when I came back after a while, 

>Windows was miraculously back up again.  However, the computer's CPU usage is stuck 

>at 100%.  I have used process explorer to check things out, and it looks like Explorer.exe 

>is taking up about 35-45% of the CPU, and then System.exe takes up whatever is remaining. 

> I have checked out all of the subprocesses of System.exe and all of them are in 

>the System32 folder and none seem to be suspicious.

>

>I have disconnected every peripheral on my computer, including my video card, sound 

>card, all cd drives, and my 2 extra hard drives that were used for data storage.

>

>I did not have any anti-virus software or anti-spyware software because the computer 

>is only a month or two old and I was just being lazy getting around to it.  I built 

>the computer myself, and up until it froze, I never had any problems with it.

>

>So here's a quick rundown of what i've tried and some of my thoughts:

>

>- I have tried to do a Windows Restore and roll back to before this happened, but 

>that didn't help.

>- The system becomes slow on boot up when I see the Window Logo screen with the 
green 

>progress bar below.

>- It is completely unusable.  It takes a minute or two just to get the start menu 

>to show up after clicking on it.  It is extremely, extremely slow.

>- The lowest i've seen the CPU drop down to is 93%, but it's almost always stuck 

>at 100%, even when in safe mode.

>- I have run a scan on the hard drive, which did not return any errors.

>- I have 2 Gigs of RAM and I have a RAM monitoring program that tells me that I 
have 

>plenty of RAM free, so I don't think that's part of the problem.

>- I have opened the computer and checked and double checked every single connection 

>to make sure everything is plugged in properly and securely.

>- I have not run HJT, but will get around to it soon (Copying a file over from a 

>thumb drive takes about a half hour when it's all said and done.)

>- I have tried booting up with Last Known Good Configuration to no avail.

>- When I boot up into the mini Windows Environment that is on the Universal Boot 

>CD that I made (bcd4win.com), it still runs extremely slow and the CPU is still 
stuck 

>at 100%.

>- I have checked the temperature of my CPU and I don't remember what it is but I 

>do remember googling around and seeing that it was in a normal range, so I don't 

>believe heat is an issue.  Plus, I have a huge fan on it.

>

>I am completely out of ideas.  I could try to format my hard drive, but I don't 
want 

>to lose everything and i'm afraid that it won't solve anything anyway.

>

>I think my next step is going to be disconnecting my hard drive, plugging in one 

>of my other hard drives that are used strictly for data, and try to install Windows 

>on one of those and see how the system responds.

>

>

>Does anyone have any clue as to what might be wrong?  I have looked all over the 

>web and none of the suggestions I have seen seem to help me.  PLEASE let me know 

>if you have any ideas, this is the most frustrating problem!!

>

>Thanks! 

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

I'm betting you acquired a virus.
You can probably use the ultimate boot CD to transfer your data to an external drive 
and then do a clean install.
Or you can use an empty hard drive with no other hard drives connected and load windows 
on it.
Play around with it for a little bit to make sure your CPU usage is not running 100%.
Do a google search for AVG Anti-virus (free version), download and install it.
Shut down, connect your old C: drive as a slave to the new drive making sure both 
have the jumpers set correctly (new:master old:slave).
Boot the PC and transfer the files you need to the new drive.
If AVG detects a threat while you transfer files, stop and delete the offending file 
before you continue.
After the files are transfered, delete the partition on the old drive.
At this point the choice is yours what you want to do.
You can format the old drive and use it for storage or start over with the old drive 
by re-installing windows on it.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

a couple of thoughts :
you could try "msconfig" to see what is running at startup, also check the "startup" 
folder in your profile. also open task-manager and check under apps and processes 
to see what is going on.

You may get some additional guidance here :

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/setup/expert/northrup_restoreperf.mspx

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

You said When I boot up into the mini Windows Environment that is on the Universal Boot CD that I made (bcd4win.com), it still runs extremely slow and the CPU is still stuck at 100%..

That eliminates anything wrong with XP since you are booting from a CD and not running anything from the hard drive. What it does not eliminate is memory (ram). Even though you ran a 36 hour test that does not mean the memory is not defective.

You didn't say how much ram you have, but you most likely have 2 memory sticks, so remove one of them and boot, see what happens. If it's still slow then swap the memory and see what happens.

It's also possible, though less likely, that the hard drive itself is defective. You can download and run the hard drive diag from the manufacturers web site. It does a pretty good test and is usually quite effective.

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Thanks for the responses.

I do have 2 1GB sticks of RAM, but unfortunately, the CPU fan that I bought is so 
big it prevents me from removing the sticks unless i remove the fan, which is glued 
in there.  So I guess that'll be my last resort.

I think I am going to hook up one of my two other hard drives and see what I get 
with that.  I'm pretty sure one of them already has windows on it, so hopefully I 
can just pop it right in there and boot up and see what happens.  

I will definitely get some anti-virus software and all of the other goodies to keep 
the system safe.

Thanks for the help!  This is the most annoying problem ever, especially since doing 
anything on the computer takes days instead of minutes, so running any sort of scan 
is just ridiculously long.

Thanks again!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

Well, I just tried my other hard drive and it says something is wrong with Windows 
(One of my data-only drives still had Windows on it from my last machine, so I just 
tried to use that).  Anyway, I tried to repair or format/reinstall and I am getting 
that same IRQL_LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL BSOD that I was getting before.  So I think I am 
going to buy some new RAM and pop that in and see how everything goes.  I am guessing 
that's the problem, so we'll see.  Boy am I going to be mad if that's not the problem 
though!

Here's a question for you guys.  How do I get my CPU fan off?  I installed it with 
some thermal glue, so I'm just not sure if it's going to be difficult to get off? 
 Are there any tips or clever ways to remove it when dealing with thermal glue?

Thanks for all of your help!

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

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