Two problems - please help

[Ymer]

I was just copying some jpegs from a CD-ROM to my
harddrive. Once again I discovered how slowly my
comp reacts when I try to do something in addition to,
in this case, copying some files.
I opened the Windows Task Manager and discovered that
the CPU usage varies between 90% and 100%, with the
occassional drop to 5-7% before it returns to 90+.
As I now type these words into Notepad before going
on the Internet to post this, the copying process has
ended and the CPU usage has returned to 0%, with the
occassional jump back and forth to 2%.

Does anybody know what this can be? Could it be my
CPU deteriorating or something? I have removed the
case a few days ago and vacuum cleaned the inside
since it was pretty dusty.

While I'm at it, my DVD-ROM (Aopen 16X DVD/AMH) doesn't
read CD-ROMs anymore, but does read DVDs (although
only through a program like PowerDVD, not directly
from the "My Computer" folder). How could this be?
I have searched for drivers without success.

Thank you for your time reading this

(Starting my Internet connection now, and loading
my startup page, CPU usage jumps to 65% and is now
steady at 21%)

SPEC:

AMD Athlon 1.3 GHz
512 MB RAM
Asus GeForce 5200XP graphics card 128 MB
Windows XP
56 kps modem
Soundblaster Live! sound card

[meese]

Your CPU usage will constantly vary. When there are no processes running it is normal for it to toggle between 0 and 2%. I don't think that is anything to worry about. As far as the DVD, I don't know why it is not reading regular cd's.

[Ymer]

But isn't 90 - 100% during file transfer a lot?

[daveleau]

Try enabling DMA for your two IDE controllers. What this does is it takes the processor out of the loop when accessing the drives. I do not use XP (I am on 2000), it should be in the Device Manager under IDE ATA/ ATAPI controllers. Go to IDE 1's properties, and you should be able to enable DMA.

If the processor was going bad, the system would not boot and/r would reboot frequently. Processors do not go out slowly. This si assuming you are meaning the processor (the 1.3 GB AMD) when you say CPU. If by CPU you mean everything in the computer case, then I would say that your problem is probably not a hardware issue, but a software/ configuration issue.

Systems routinely have processor usage go up to 100%, and this is nothing to worry about. If it goes up an abnormal amount of time, then you have some software problem which needs troubleshooting.

[daveleau]

Browsing the web, posting here while copying 3.5 GB between two separate drives (on the same IDE channel): task amnager shows that my processor usage goes as high as 67%, but stays around 40% or below most of the time. Again, I have DMA enabled with 2 ATA100 drives on an AMD 2400+ (1.8GHz).

When was the last time you defragged?

[Ymer]

I haven't defragged because there's always something running here or there. I do have large drives though, one 80 GB and one 120 GB so maybe you're onto something here. I haven't found any options for DMA on my drives, only "Enable autoquota". Thnx for the help so far

[Ymer]

BTW, I found DMA now; for both drives, it's checked as "Use DMA if available". Primary IDE Channel has Ultra DMA Mode 5, the other has Multi-Word DMA 2 (?).

[DoctorReno]

Those DMA speeds sound correct. The CPU usage also is normal to my knowledge.
You really should run defrag on a regular basis it will deal with what is running and part of the defrag process will occur the next time you restart and before the OS is actually running so it can defrag files that are in use when the OS is running.

[JPMiller]

Run Spybot and or Adaware, then clean up all unnecessary files, tempfolders and uninstall any unnecessary programs, then run reglean, and then defrag. works wonders on mine!

[Ymer]

When I copied those files (as mentioned in the first post), I did this from my CD-writer (since I can't play CD-ROMs on my DVD for some reason).

I just burned a CD with the same writer now. While I did this, it was impossible to do anything else. Loading this webpage took a long time. It took me 14:10 minutes to burn the CD on 8x, directly from my second hard drive.

Could this be a clue? I will try Spybot and Adaware.