Technical Question

Posted on April 22nd, 2007 by Deb

For you computer experts out there–a technical question. Lately, my computer’s been working very hard–at 100% CPU usage, according to Windows Task Manager–and the list of “Processes” is lengthy, but unlike the “Applications,” I can’t tell a valid Process from an invalid one.

Any ideas on what I should try to get my computer functioning at a normal level again? I’ve run anti-virus and anti-spamware checks and it SEEMS like things are working normally (if a little slowly, which makes sense because, well, obviously things are busy behind the scenes). But, those “processes” are a mystery with names like “mxtas.exe” or “ati2evxx.exe” . . . things which may well be entirely necessary, but how is anyone who’s not a programmer supposed to know?

Edited to add: Thanks, folks. Process Library was very handy, and I just bought, downloaded, and installed Uniblue’s Power Suite which seems to have helped. Gotta love internet security, huh?

Tags: General // 5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Technical Question”

  1. PumpkinMama // Apr 22, 2007 at 5:32 pm

    Try this google search – there are all kinds of online sites where you can look up processes and what they are:

    http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=windows+processes+list&btnG=Google+Search

  2. Chris // Apr 22, 2007 at 5:54 pm

    Try searching here: http://www.processlibrary.com/

  3. Cindy // Apr 22, 2007 at 10:26 pm

    Try defragging your machine….you may have files that have managed to place themselves all over the hard drive and your PC needs to work twice as hard to put two and two together. this will make the pc run at 100%

  4. JessaLu // Apr 23, 2007 at 12:38 am

    I was going to suggest googling the process names…but alas, too slow ;o)

  5. Paula // Apr 23, 2007 at 12:38 pm

    Let me know, it takes me what seems like hours to blog, when the machine is struggling at 100% CPU usage. I will forward you a few sites I found. Mine does not seem to need defragging

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