CPU at full load, no reason

[DPA]

I am on a Windows ME machine with these specs:

1.33C Athlon Thunderbird
256MB PC133
20GB HDD
Biostar M7VQK w/ onboard video

There is something on this machine that is absolutely tearing stuff up, i have run 3 different brands of virus scans though here yielding nothing, i have scandisked and defragged. Checked out the running tasks through Ctrl Alt Del and ended everything but explorer and systray... yet the CPU is cranked to 100% load all the time.

There isn't any form of crunching software on here, and as stated before, no viral activity.

what in the world could be causing such a ruckus in this computer?

The computer will start up and the cpu be running around 3-10% with variations according to mouse movement and menu popping, but then lets say i were to open IE or Opera, it flies to 100%

No network connected to it with a dial up connection and not necessarily connected at all times, so its not an external source causing such problems.

suggestions?

[amicrawl]

well my friend win me will take over 50% of your cpu and if you run more apps in your systray that will all so take more cpu and memory to take things out of the try try tthis

goto run" then type msconfig
will brigh up a menu click on last tab
then un check mark all but systray and your av
and any thing that sayes sys keep
then restart but for most win producks are cpu hog any ways goto linux more cpu freindly

since you will be starting out try this linux

lycoris you can get it from this site if you have highspeed internet ftp.bendug.org/pub/lycoris and get the 1st disk only the only one you need then install over yout me os you can make dule boot
and lycoris will see you win me partion
and has wine in it as well goto www.winehq.org to find out if this is the awnser for you good luck

[DPA]

i have already made a runthrough on MSCONFIG as standard procedure for keeping down the number of programs that i start up with, as well as making sure there is no viral activity by making a quick "once over" in the registry.

Windows ME is not the only OS that will use 50% of the CPU with running processes, in fact, ME is just like the rest with CPU usage, ME is considered bad because of its sloppy ram management, not CPU power wasting or hogging. This computer has been extremely stable in the past, and only until recently did it begin to act up with the CPU hogging.

The problem here is not ME [no pun intended] I fear that there is in fact a virus or malicious code running in specific programs, but is not detected by AV software..

I currently don't have knoppix here with me or else i would just run from CD and check the cpu through there.

if all else fails, i will back up personal files of the client and blast the system to the ground, and give her 2K or XP depending on her preference.

thanks

[DPA]

oh, and for clarity and future reference amicrawl

don't suggest someone switching to linux because of a minor glitch, in fact, don't mention or point to linux or any other operating system unless the author of the thread has specifically asked for possible alternatives.

it is rather offensive and quite unsubstantiated when you call linux "more cpu friendly" Windows products are rarely CPU hogs unless called upon to be CPU hogs, if what you say were true, Crunching programs would be rather useless, as they would not have priority of the CPU.

I don't mean to bash or throw you down, just don't be so quick to draw that exact sword.

thanks anyway!

[DPA]

alright, i fixed it..

turns out there was a set of registry keys under a trojan horse/web dialer feature that no antivirus has been able to detect/identify.

i found this information on spybot search and destroy's home page.

After fixing it, everything is in tip top shape!