CPU Usage problem, computer lags?

Question

Hello.
My specs are:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+ 2.70 GHz, 3GB RAM
ATI Radeon HD 3650
Windows XP Professional 32bit

I'm having major lag issues. I bought this computer from a friend of mine, and for him it has worked great. My friend took the operating system from the PC, so I got Windows XP Pro to this computer. After I downloaded all drivers and everything was setup, I tried launching a game Counter-Strike. To my huge surprise I noticed that I lag a little now and then, when running I would lag every 10 seconds, not FPS drop, but more like a "stop".

So, I checked the task manager, and guess what... PC Performance is jumping from 2%-98% depending on what I'm doing. And yes I have tried to close every process, which actually does lower it to 2% but the moment I load a webpage it will jump to 68-75% again.

Right now, when I'm writing this, I am listening to music on spotify, and the music LAGS so much... it's like the music stops, like if I paused it for a split of a second, and then it continues, it's the same in game.

When I pressure my computer, by doing anything like loading a webpage, opening control pane or My computer, or EVEN just dragging a window, my CPU Usage will increase, which makes me lag.

I have all settings on my graphics card set to performance.
Normally, I would have the following programs running at the same time:
Google Chrome
Spotify
Steam
Counter-Strike
Spotify
Avast
ATI Radeon graphics card program
Steelseries Engine
Creative Headset Program

And my old computer, that had the SAME exact same processors, could handle all of that without any problems what so ever. There are no "unneccecary" programs that take a lot of CPU, since I tried closing them all for example except Spotify, and still it lags.

Screenshots:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/594/normalwhenonlyavastrunn.jpg/
= Normal CPU usage when only avast is running, note that it does jump from 0%-4%.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/210/atob.jpg/
= Little test, this is dot A, watch me drag it to B and see what happens with the cpu usage.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/502/b22o.jpg/
= Dot B, see dot A above, as u can see it went from 0% - 22% just by me dragging the window a bit.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/513/openingchromewithoutany.jpg/
= Opening google chrome without anything other than Avast running, CPU increase from about 8 to 61%
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/689/normal8e.jpg/
= Normal CPU usage when I am running spotify, steelseries, ATI etcetc, note that chrome is minimized.
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/201/openingchromewindow.jpg/
= Opening/Unminimizing chrome window, watch the picture above to understand what I mean, it jumps from 8% - 36%
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/24/backtonormalg.jpg/
= Then back to normal after about 5 seconds, however the CPU keeps to jump from 5%-90% depending on what I am doing.


Note that even when the CPU usage is low, the music on spotify lags terribly.. as I said, like if I paused it and then unpaused it, the same goes for games.

And once again, I had this processor before on my old PC, which could handle it great, shouldn't be any issues with the processor. Also, this being a "new" pc, I just installed WINDOWS on it, so it does not have alot of programs yet, so defragging or closing processes wouldn't help.

Appreciate early answers.

Regards

Answer 1

Make sure your java / flash player is up to date and if it is try re installing java it was messing up on me once using 70+ percent of my X4 940



Also how much ram does the pc have?



Also your hard drive is more likely to be fragged right after a fresh install due to all the programs / updates that are installed but a bogged down hard drive does not cause more cpu usage

Answer 2

till now you start up the sport, is your CPU utilization at ~0%? Use the technique supervisor to ascertain this, and if there is yet another technique ingesting up CPU cycles try killing it. yet another issue must be reminiscence; does the sport have adequate loose reminiscence to run? if your reminiscence is finished once you start up the sport, the CPU would "thrash" because of the fact there is not any longer adequate reminiscence to save interest data. returned, if this seems to be a issue try killing some tactics that gobble reminiscence. in case you seem to have the two reminiscence and the CPU is unused till now you start up the sport, have you ever made any transformations to your drivers or the OS? Or have you ever replaced any video suggestions (like changing the sport to application acceleration)? in case you have, try utilising an older driving force or changing the settings back.

Answer 3

Try cleaning up your HDD.