Everytime I connect to the internet, my CPU usage goes from 5% to 95%. If I disconnect, it will go back down to 5%.
I am running windows XP with a duel processor and 4 gigs of ram.
My wireless adapter is Netgear Rangemax Wireless PCI Adapter WPN311.
Should I just purchase a new card or can this be a symtom of something internal?
Edit: I would also like to add, I did a virus scan, spyware scan, defrag'd, and cleaned my registries. It helped a little but no where near enough. Also, my task manager has no other process running up my CPU usage(except system idle) while my comp is connected to the internet. I think there is another program that shows more info than the Microsoft task manager, if anyone can enlighten me on it, I would apprieciate it. I would like to know if it can just be a driver conflict that causes this.
Edited, Feb 4th 2008 11:58am by calindc
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My internet is taking up all my CPU usageFollow
Have you disabled the local area connection that isn't in use since you're on wireless? That could cause an IRQ conflict, I think.
If you haven't, try taking a Cat 5 ethernet and plugging the PC up to the internet that way. If it's still being a resource hog, then it's not the wireless card.
When you say "internet" -- are you actually opening a browser, like IE7 or Firefox? 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough to handle either, but if it's causing massive CPU overload before you even open a browser, then something weird is happening. And what other programs are in the background? If you have a program like seti@home going constantly, it could cause a massive data influx the second you connect to the net.
If you haven't, try taking a Cat 5 ethernet and plugging the PC up to the internet that way. If it's still being a resource hog, then it's not the wireless card.
When you say "internet" -- are you actually opening a browser, like IE7 or Firefox? 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough to handle either, but if it's causing massive CPU overload before you even open a browser, then something weird is happening. And what other programs are in the background? If you have a program like seti@home going constantly, it could cause a massive data influx the second you connect to the net.
catwho, pet mage of Jabober wrote:
Have you disabled the local area connection that isn't in use since you're on wireless? That could cause an IRQ conflict, I think.
If you haven't, try taking a Cat 5 ethernet and plugging the PC up to the internet that way. If it's still being a resource hog, then it's not the wireless card.
When you say "internet" -- are you actually opening a browser, like IE7 or Firefox? 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough to handle either, but if it's causing massive CPU overload before you even open a browser, then something weird is happening. And what other programs are in the background? If you have a program like seti@home going constantly, it could cause a massive data influx the second you connect to the net.
If you haven't, try taking a Cat 5 ethernet and plugging the PC up to the internet that way. If it's still being a resource hog, then it's not the wireless card.
When you say "internet" -- are you actually opening a browser, like IE7 or Firefox? 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough to handle either, but if it's causing massive CPU overload before you even open a browser, then something weird is happening. And what other programs are in the background? If you have a program like seti@home going constantly, it could cause a massive data influx the second you connect to the net.
Thank you for your reply.
I took my ethernet card out and replaced it with the wireless card (the only PCI slot on my board). When I go to Network Connections, the only option that even shows up is the wireless one. Maybe I should reinstall the ethernet card and connect it striaght to the router. That should tell me if it is the card. While I was checking out the culprit, I disabled all firewalls, all virus/spyware scans, and all unnessesary backgroud programs to eliminate them as the problem. This all happens before I even open up my internet browser.
When I get home, I will check out Process Explorer, as I hear it gives better information than Task manager.
Edited, Feb 4th 2008 3:43pm by calindc
Did you install the wireless drivers along with that wireless card?
Yes, from the Netgear CD that came with the card, and the updates from their website.
Let me know the results of process explorer, but we're hitting the limits of my knowledge (not tech support, just a marketing grunt, but you'd be surprised how much you pick up after the dozenth technical whitepaper on enterprise class servers.)
Shot in the dark here as well: when was the last time you did a clean install of Windows? XP is a lot better than 98 was, but it still runs best when it's reformatted and reinstalled at least once a year.
Shot in the dark here as well: when was the last time you did a clean install of Windows? XP is a lot better than 98 was, but it still runs best when it's reformatted and reinstalled at least once a year.
I ran the Process Explorer and it is reading ~60% Deferred Procedure calls, ~20% Interupts, and the rest in system idle. When I disconnect from the net, 99-100% in system idle. I am thinking it is either a driver conflict, a bad card, or a bad PCI slot.
I ran a fresh install less than a month ago, when I installed a new graphics card.
Thank you for your assistance.
I ran a fresh install less than a month ago, when I installed a new graphics card.
Thank you for your assistance.
Post a Hijackthis log.
http://www.download.com/3001-8022_4-10781312.html?spi=676b09d479b7ebbabbe3e50e1e9fd38a
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial94.html
When you say "internet" -- are you actually opening a browser, like IE7 or Firefox? 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough to handle either,
One, XP can't address more than 3g of ram. You may as well take that extra 1g and fry eggs on it. Two, network services take virtually no ram. 1gb is massive overkill for web surfing.
but if it's causing massive CPU overload before you even open a browser, then something weird is happening. And what other programs are in the background? If you have a program like seti@home going constantly, it could cause a massive data influx the second you connect to the net.
No.
I know you're trying to help, but guessing wildly isn't doing that.
http://www.download.com/3001-8022_4-10781312.html?spi=676b09d479b7ebbabbe3e50e1e9fd38a
http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/tutorial94.html
When you say "internet" -- are you actually opening a browser, like IE7 or Firefox? 4 gigs of RAM should be more than enough to handle either,
One, XP can't address more than 3g of ram. You may as well take that extra 1g and fry eggs on it. Two, network services take virtually no ram. 1gb is massive overkill for web surfing.
but if it's causing massive CPU overload before you even open a browser, then something weird is happening. And what other programs are in the background? If you have a program like seti@home going constantly, it could cause a massive data influx the second you connect to the net.
No.
I know you're trying to help, but guessing wildly isn't doing that.
Disclaimer:
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
Thank you, I will run/post this when I get home tonight.
Smasharoo wrote:
Spanked Catwho for getting above her tech skills.
Heh, I should post the disclaimer on every one of my replies that I'm in IT marketing, not tech support.
But . . . I'd venture to say that a good half of tech support is making educated guesses based on the presented evidence and past experience. A long time ago, I couldn't understand why my PIII was hovering around 75% CPU usage the minute I logged on, until I remembered that I had SETI@home running on it all the time. Figured it coulda been something similar.
Quote:
One, XP can't address more than 3g of ram.
I feel kind of obligated to pop in to tell you you're wrong.
Edited, Feb 6th 2008 10:10pm by Groogle
Quote:
I feel kind of obligated to point out that I'm not wrong, and that is going to go poorly for you. You're going to end up cutting and pasting things that just make you look 1) Uneducated on the subject, and 2) Trying far too hard for no reason and yet still failing at making your point.
XP Pro 64 is a distinct OS, if that's your point, just as Windows 3.1 isn't the same as Vista because they both happen to have "Windows" in the name.
WinXP has a 4 gig addressable memory space. That is not at all the same as a 3 gig addressable RAM limit. Unless you're using a quite highend vid card or SLI cards, a 4gb addressable space limit will allow for more than 3 gb of addressable RAM.
You really should limit sounding amazingly arrogant to cases where you actually know what you are talking about.
Quote:
Yeah, go look it up again and see if you can get it right this time. Try, perhaps, asking someone who's not functionally retarded what "address" means. Good luck with that, and with your educational career at ITT Tech.
I'm 98% sure I'm attending a better school than you did. I'd be pretty shocked if I'm not, since we're usually ranked top 10, and usually as the best public in the country.
Quote:
Unless you're using a quite highend vid card or SLI cards, a 4gb addressable space limit will allow for more than 3 gb of addressable RAM.
Wrong.
Wrong.
I'm a little confused about why you are oh ***** it I'm out of links stubbornly refusing to google the damn thing or defer to those of us who are actually PC techs.
What do you want, a screenshot of my hardware manager recognizing ~3.5 gigs of RAM?
Edited, Feb 8th 2008 4:26pm by Groogle
Quote:
You aren't.
I'm certain.
I'm certain.
so you went to an upper tier ivy then? grats =)
Though the Times ranking has had us as high as #2 globally within the last few years, so even that isn't necessarily better. so The rankings above 25 or 30 are based off of rather ethereal qualities anyway.
Quote:
Memory address space above 3GB was INTENTIONALLY RESERVED WITHIN THE KERNEL OF THE OS because it wouldn't generate conflicts. It CANNOT BE ADDRESSED.
Oh, so this is what you are talking about.
To begin with, you have the wrong number. I'll forgive you, since the /3GB switch changes it to 3 -- but by default, virtual usermode address space is limited to 2 gb. The other 2 gb (or 1gb, if you have /3GB on) of available address space is only accessible by kernel mode code. THIS IS NOT THE SAME AS BEING UNUSABLE. MANY THINGS THAT OPERATE IN KERNEL MODE REQUIRE SUBSTANTIAL ADDRESS SPACE THAT CAN BE PROVIDED BY THIS BLOCK.
The ONLY actual 'memory hole' in XP comes from memory mapped IO reservations. The largest reservation is typically 256-768mb for a PCIX slot, with PCI slots, your BIOS, and various legacy stuff taking up a bit more.
Edited, Feb 8th 2008 9:20pm by Groogle
Keep arguing, I'm learning stuff here.
Edit: I went to go check what kind of RAM I need to pick up tomorrow, and lo and behold, the HP website had this relevent paragraph to the discussion at hand:
Edited, Feb 9th 2008 12:16am by catwho
Edit: I went to go check what kind of RAM I need to pick up tomorrow, and lo and behold, the HP website had this relevent paragraph to the discussion at hand:
Quote:
Important! You may find that your HP or Compaq computer is able to support a physical installation of 4 GB or more memory. However, this maximum memory may be further limited by the operating system not being able to address the full range of physical memory. For 32-bit operating systems, Windows Vista and XP 32-bit editions can address approximately 3.3 GB. This limitation is present on all 32-bit hardware and 32-bit operating systems and is not limited to HP and Compaq systems.
Edited, Feb 9th 2008 12:16am by catwho
MANY THINGS THAT OPERATE IN KERNEL MODE REQUIRE SUBSTANTIAL ADDRESS SPACE THAT CAN BE PROVIDED BY THIS BLOCK.
Yes, moron. Provided IN PLACE OF PHYSICAL MEMORY.
Has it hit home yet?
Lesson's over, junior. Put 12gm of RAM into XP and throw some money out your window too for good measure.
Disclaimer:
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? Gay. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.
That is one way to spend the free money the government is throwing your way: MORE RAM!
I have to side with Smash on this one
You can put 4 GB all you want but even on Win XP pro, good luck really using 4 GB for all its worth.
Unless youre on X64, but that is an exception, not many of us run X64 and its not wat is considered by "everyone" windows xp. Windows XP Home edition (or heck Pro because of offices, but ask most people out there what their OS is, they will just say XP) Would be the "normal" version.
I have to side with Smash on this one
Quote:
The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. When the physical RAM in the system exceeds 16 GB and the /3GB switch is used, the operating system will ignore the additional RAM until the /3GB switch is removed. This is because of the increased size of the kernel required to support more Page Table Entries. The assumption is made that the administrator would rather not lose the /3GB functionality silently and automatically; therefore, this requires the administrator to explicitly change this setting.
The /3GB switch allocates 3 GB of virtual address space to an application that uses IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header. This switch allows applications to address 1 GB of additional virtual address space above 2 GB.
The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB, unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. The following example shows how to add the /3GB parameter in the Boot.ini file to enable application memory tuning:
The /3GB switch allocates 3 GB of virtual address space to an application that uses IMAGE_FILE_LARGE_ADDRESS_AWARE in the process header. This switch allows applications to address 1 GB of additional virtual address space above 2 GB.
The virtual address space of processes and applications is still limited to 2 GB, unless the /3GB switch is used in the Boot.ini file. The following example shows how to add the /3GB parameter in the Boot.ini file to enable application memory tuning:
You can put 4 GB all you want but even on Win XP pro, good luck really using 4 GB for all its worth.
Unless youre on X64, but that is an exception, not many of us run X64 and its not wat is considered by "everyone" windows xp. Windows XP Home edition (or heck Pro because of offices, but ask most people out there what their OS is, they will just say XP) Would be the "normal" version.
I'm having a pretty good time reading this, although I find the conversation more judgmental than I'm used to. I don't claim to know the correct answer to the question. I know that not all of the fourth GB of memory will be used by Windows, but I do not know whether some or it or all of it will be wasted.
However, I can explain WHY it is wasted.
Unless explicitly identified as 64-bit, Windows 2000, XP, etc. are 32-bit operating systems. Why does this matter? Any address, or "unique location identified by a number", is limited to a 32-bit number. This number is binary - zeroes and ones only - so we can calculate how many unique addresses this is by finding 2*2*2*... = 2^32 ~ 4*10^9 = 4GB.
Thus, it is not possible for a 32-bit system to address more than 4GB of memory. Yes, there could be more memory beyond this, but the system cannot use it because it doesn't know how to talk to it. Once it gets to the end of the fourth GB address (1111...1111), if it adds 1, you overflow the binary adder and get back to zero (0000...0000).
Wait a minute. Why does Windows limit us to less than 4GB?
Many computers use memory addresses to "talk" to other devices, such as the floppy drive and parallel port in older computers. This started decades ago when memory was small and expensive, and old 8-bit computers (=only 256,000 addresses) had plenty of address space left for other devices. Why invent new CPU commands to access hardware when you can give it a memory address? And that's what they did. And this practice typically holds over, in one form or another, today.
I don't know if Windows uses the extra memory addresses for hardware addressing or something else (I think someone mentioned Virtual Memory - that is a likely candidate as well since Windows does not behave well when deprived of all virtual memory no matter how much physical memory you have). Perhaps it is a combination of all these things.
But now you know why 4-GB is the limit for 32-bit systems. I hope the space this trivia now occupies in your brain was not reserved for something more useful.
Edited, Mar 21st 2008 2:50pm by garfunkel
However, I can explain WHY it is wasted.
Unless explicitly identified as 64-bit, Windows 2000, XP, etc. are 32-bit operating systems. Why does this matter? Any address, or "unique location identified by a number", is limited to a 32-bit number. This number is binary - zeroes and ones only - so we can calculate how many unique addresses this is by finding 2*2*2*... = 2^32 ~ 4*10^9 = 4GB.
Thus, it is not possible for a 32-bit system to address more than 4GB of memory. Yes, there could be more memory beyond this, but the system cannot use it because it doesn't know how to talk to it. Once it gets to the end of the fourth GB address (1111...1111), if it adds 1, you overflow the binary adder and get back to zero (0000...0000).
Wait a minute. Why does Windows limit us to less than 4GB?
Many computers use memory addresses to "talk" to other devices, such as the floppy drive and parallel port in older computers. This started decades ago when memory was small and expensive, and old 8-bit computers (=only 256,000 addresses) had plenty of address space left for other devices. Why invent new CPU commands to access hardware when you can give it a memory address? And that's what they did. And this practice typically holds over, in one form or another, today.
I don't know if Windows uses the extra memory addresses for hardware addressing or something else (I think someone mentioned Virtual Memory - that is a likely candidate as well since Windows does not behave well when deprived of all virtual memory no matter how much physical memory you have). Perhaps it is a combination of all these things.
But now you know why 4-GB is the limit for 32-bit systems. I hope the space this trivia now occupies in your brain was not reserved for something more useful.
Edited, Mar 21st 2008 2:50pm by garfunkel
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