Bad Processor?

[NightSongz]

Hope someone can help. I have an Intel Pentium 4 2.0 GHz processor and it was always running fine until yesterday morning when the electricity went on and off 2 very quicly within the matter of seconds. Anyways, ever since then, which was only a day, the computer had been running sluggish like I had an old 200 meg processor or something. So anyways, I pulled up the Windows Task Manager pane and click the Performance tab to check the CPU usage graph and it was basically at 95 to 100% and I was only running Yahoo Messenger and Outlook and the web browser. Is this my processor or my motherboard? The computer recognizes the Pentium 4 2.0 GHz and my memory is fine. When the electricity did that and the pc tried to turn back on, I couldn't get it started again. It would almost start and then get to a screen that said something about an unbootable mount or something and after trying everything possible...safe mode...roll back...etc...I just booted thru the cdrom with the XP disc and formatted and reinstalled everything. But I really don't see where that would come into play with this. Also I noticed in the CPU usage graph that wehn I don't have anything running and the usage is at around 5%, I can open a jpg, move it around the screen really fast and the CPU usage jumps up to like 40%. Weird...if anyone might have some idea about what is up, that would be great! I'm including a screen capture to give you some kind of idea what I mean. Just starting my Yahoo messenger maxed out my CPU. Thanks! :-)

Raquel

[XxCowOfChaosxX]

check the processes to see whats hoggin ur usage

[NightSongz]

I did...and basically whatever I start up...messenger...Photoshop...almost any one program uses up most of the CPU. The small programs running in the background are only using about 5% when everything else is shut down. That's what I mean by I don't have any idea why the processor is acting like it's only an old 200 meg one...and that would be giving it alot of credit! lol

Raquel

[NightSongz]

For instance, I had only background things running, so I started messenger and the looked at the "Processes" tab and Messenger was using 96%. About the same when I only used Outlook or a few other programs that I ran by themselves and got close to the same result.

Raquel

[RicheemxX]

well actual cpu ussage will vary from time to time when you open a new program it will jump from %5 to 95-100% but if your computer is running sluggish like you said it was before the reinstall then your talking about something else. does it still run slow after the reinstall?? check your memeory with memtester and check the hard rive with the diagnostic tools from your hdd man

[NightSongz]

Yes...this is all happening after the reinstall. I know the CPU varies but if something is running, like one of the programs I mentioned, it doesn't vary at all...it stays at 90+ percent. Basically, like I said, my pc is not acting like it has a 2GHz processor at all. It acts like it is only 50 meg, for real. :-(

[imac9556]

Did you check if the power killed your CPU fan? I know that intel processors have thermal throttling, to prevent damge. one time I actually forgot to connect the heatsink to the computer. (i was interrupted when i was putting it back together, closed lid when I got back, turned it on..) Then when I was using the computer, the computer was Soooo slow! I didn't notice the noise difference because of the PSU fan and Case fan.
Check if the actual fan on the heatsink is spinning...

[RicheemxX]

to gget it straight is it still slugish or not?? I run at 100% 90% of the time cpu ussage doesn't mean squat but if its running slow then your talking about maybe some bad ram or something wrong with the HDD but I doubt its something wrong with the cou or you'd ahve issues with booting or doing a new install

[NightSongz]

Yes it is, I checked in the bios tools to see if the cpu had overheated and it was at only 56 degrees and it also showed that the fan was running but after your post, I opened it up to make sure. Baffling, huh? lol

Raquel

[NightSongz]

It is sluggish. I basically cannot run any 2 programs at once and I know the RAM is fine. I think you could be right about the hard drive, though. When the pc tried to turn back after the power problem, it stopped at a screen that said, I think, unbootable_mount_volume or somthing like that and I couldn't get into Windows through any way possible, so I went into BIOS and set it to boot thru the cdrom with XP, like I said and it actually let me format the drive which is weird because XP would never let me format the drive before because it was preinstalled. It would only let me do System restore. Anyways, I am being a pain now so I'll shut up. I still do not get how 1 tiny program can use 96% or so of the cpu...so I just figured something happened with that or the motherboard. I'll keep trying to figure it out. Thanks! :-)

Raquel