Question about WindowsXP Task Manager

[Junkman]

I have Windows Xp Sp1 installed and am new to using it. I have been experiencing a lockup on several games that used to work fine in Windows98SE. When I bring up the Task Manager, the CPU usage shows 100%. Is this normal or are there some settings that I'm missing when I set up XP? I have installed on a freshly partitioned and formatted drive and have installed all the windows updates except q811493. Also I have the same problem with letting windows manage virtual memory or with a static virtual memory set to 1024. I also have no other programs running while the games are being used. I have also reduced the number of processes in alternate hardware profiles as shown on this site Link No matter what hardware profile I use, I still have lockups occur with the task manager showing 100% CPU usage. I would appreciate any ideas you might have on this!

 

[mikecel79]

Click on the processes Tab and see what process is eating up all the CPU time. That will give you an idea of where to start.

 

[Junkman]

Mike, thanks for your reply. The process using up all the cpu is the game that I'm trying to run.... it shows 99%. What is so unusual about this is that almost all of my games do this... whereas in 98se I never had that problem. I found something similar to this problem on an xp tweak site but it had to do with opening avi's. With no programs running except Internet explorer my cpu usage is between 0 and 2%.

 

[dawks]

So when your just sitting there with no games running, your system is at 100% CPU use?

Or when your playing a game, and it crashes, and you CTRL+ALT+DEL and bring up the task manager, thats when its at 100%? Thats the way it should be. Kill the process and hopefully you should be able to move on.

As for crashing issues, which games are they? What video card are you using, and which drivers are you using for it?

 

[mikecel79]

Another problem is that sometimes games install on DLL for Win9x and another for Win2k/XP. Could be that one of the DLLs is not compatible with XP. Have you tried reinstalling the game again?

 

[Junkman]

When there are no games running my cpu use is minimal 0-2%. When the games crash I do hit cntrl-alt-del and the cpu usage does show 100%. At that point the mouse no longer works. I have tried to use keyboard commands to shut down the process (game), but when the process is picked this way and I try to tab to the button to close the process the highlighted process turns grey....so I usually try to reboot, however XP will not shut down so I have to hit the reset button. The games I'm having problems with are Medal of Honor, GTAIII, and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The worst one being Medal of Honor. The other two games allow me to escape from the games but I still have to reboot because the mouse is frozen. I have tried reinstalling and have also reinstalled on a clean install of WindowsXP SP1 with the same results. My system specs are:
2.4B p4
GA-8sg667 mobo
512mb ddr400
Radeon9800pro with Cat3.4 Dx9.0a (though same problems with 3.2 & dx9.0)
60GB IBM Deskstar gxp60
onboard sound (also had FortisssimoIII installed with same problems)

 

[dawks]

Well, im not sure what the problem is then.

Im running Windows XP, with a Radeon 7500, and ATI Cat 3.2 and Medal Of Honor and RTCW are both completly stable. The only difference is im running DirectX 8.1, and using a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.

What happens to those games when they stop responding?

 

[Junkman]

Daz, usually what happens is the mouse stops working first. At that point I can still move using the keyboard and carry out actions that are defined by the keyboard. All the mouse functions however just stop functioning. This is common to all the games I mentioned earlier, however MOHAA will sometimes freeze totally. Even when I get to the desktop the mouse still doesn't work even if I can manage to shut down the game. I have seen similar posts about this at Rage3d but no one had any idea what the problem might be. It has been suggested with MOHAA that the game will try to connect to the internet via a dial up connection but I'm on cable and don't have anything set up to dial up.

 

[dunkster]

Perhaps you should reduce the total number of processes running.

Click on Start/Run, type msconfig in the box and click OK.

Check to see how many processes are in STARTUP. Uncheck those that aren't really needed at startup.

I have only Norton Antivirus and Systray checked. The problem with many processes starting is that you forget to turn them off when you run a game.

Hope this helps!

 

[dawks]

This sounds like a mouse(hardware) or driver issue.

Which mouse are you using? Have you 'overclocked' it?

 

[Junkman]

Dunkster, thanks for your reply, I have shut down alot of processes and have configured a hardware profile with minimal processes running.....Check out the link on my initial post it seems to be a pretty good site for xp tweaking.

Daz, I'm using an Intellimouse explorer and I have my suspicions about it...It's one of the first ones that came out....it worked fine in 98SE on all games. I've got a new one on order from newegg (version 3.0a). But I have also used a regular ps2 mouse and although the ps2 mouse doesn't quit working.....I get crashes in the games, usually ctd's and hard lockups. Thanks to all for trying to help! ooops I almost forgot....I don't have anything overclocked

 

[Junkman]

I think I may have solved my problem.....I guess it was a hardware problem. I had to change some of the bios settings that probably didn't work too well with XP. I was able to play MOHAA for about 2hrs and no lockups or mouse problems. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-8SG667 that has a top performance setting in the bios. Resetting it to the Optimized Defaults seemed to clear up the problem....at least for now hopefully that was the fix that was needed. Thanks for all the replies.