CPU Usage 100%

find out whats using the CPU first - run task manager and check

You shouldn't be running at 100%.  As mentioned, look at TASK MANAGER.  Anything you don't recognize, google to find out what it is.

However, DON'T remove anything till you get a tech to confirm.  And DON'T download any programs from the net that are said to fix this problem.

Its a long term problem Firefox seems to eat most

firefox can be a memory hog

but it shouldnt be eating CPU unless you are actively doing anything, such as watching videos or heavily animated sites etc

can you figure out exactly what activity(s) or sites in firefox cause the most problem?

but definitely check the process tab in task manager as well, just in case - sort by CPU and it should be obvious if anything else is eating CPU as well (such as antivirus scans, etc)

System Idle Process and Firefox are the culprits

'system idle process' is just geekspeak for doing nothing... ie spare CPU available... so a high number here is good

are any processes using excessive memory?

also, what CPU/memory does your current system have?

4.5 yrs old pc CPU 2.8ghz memory 1gb

other than Firefox nothing  uses much

I run the same sites on my laptop 18 months old 3gb memory  far less CPU usage

ok 1GB is a bit low these days... going up to 2GB (or even more) couldn't hurt

also - is that 2.8GHz CPU a single core, dual or quad?

if its only a single core, it may be time to upgrade the whole thing

but if you have any tech-savvy friends, i'd get them to give it a once-over first, just to make sure nothing unnecessary is consuming resources

Its a single core.

I've closed firefox and tried I.E and Chrome and they both use far less, so it looks like FF causes the problem.

Thanks for your help

nerds

A machine that's only 4.5 yrs old shouldn't need to be upgraded to solve ur problem Ron. I built my pc 10 yrs ago (a P4 2.8 Ghz processor and 1Gb RAM) and just today for example I had 6 IE8 windows open, two Firefox (one streaming a footy match), and Utorrent downloading The Last Exorcism all at the same time. On top of that I had Outlook open as well....no issues at all. If you really think it's firefox dragging you down then ditch it and use summat else.  My advice to you would be run the pc in safe mode for a while and see if you get the same issues - if you don't then start thinking about getting a really good clean out done of all the temp crap followed by a pruning of your startup programs then run a full scan with a decent anti virus product. I thank you.

I have to kill the betfair forum using task manager 2-3 times a day as it ends up using huge amounts of CPU and closing it down isn't enough.

I'm not a techie.
Why isn't closing something down enough ?

One program.......CCleaner

Racing Post site gobbles CPU

this is a longstanding problem with firefox. it doesn't release memory properly, and closing tabs doesn't help. you have to close the whole programme down and reopen it.

or use something else.

Try Firefox 4 beta. It is much slicker on javascript heavy sites such as Betfair and the RP.

Use the following add-ons:

adblocker
flashblocker

Make sure your antivirus is running and upto date. Don't use paid for 'internet protection suites'. Use free ones such as comodo or avast.

Don't run spybot in the background - only run it as-is.

Run the free version of Malwarebytes anti malware:

http://www.malwarebytes.org/

On a related theme the best way to find out which apps are out of date and a security risk is Secunia PSI:

https://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/

Oh, and finally if your ISP is Talk Talk / Tiscali or any part of the Carphone Warehouse brand you should seriously consider changing your ISP asap. Talk Talk use DPI technology to monitor near enough everything you do and say on the internet. Your browsing data is not safe if you with them.

Google for

talk talk spying on users

or read:

https://nodpi.org/2010/11/24/update-stalkstalk/

Cheers Phil...downloaded Ffox 4 Beta and defo seems quicker on RPost site, which will be a big help.

Reds under the bed as well Pittsburgh ?

Absolutely.

Dig deeper into BT and Phorm and you will see the Russian connection: 100 ex cold war programmers designed and developed an interception method which was stealthed that there was no way to block it, and no way to prevent it. Only through sheer incompetence did they get rumbled and were forced to high tail it out of the country.

Talk Talk have teamed up with Huawei. The chinese this time. Same type of interception techniques, and same ulterior motive.

Your only option is to change your ISP.

Good call on FF4, p phil. Quick to download pages and when you move about a site the pages are not flickering all over the place.

For Betfair though Chrome is still the one for me.

interesting to read about chrome flatliner. When it first came out, I remember reading on here that it didn't work very well for Betfair. I was thinking of trying it out but one thought occured to me - I heavily rely on the gruss refresh script, is there something similar for Chrome?

Phil

You are obviously knowledgable about these things - do you know of a good free website that scans for (and provides) driver updates? If no free ones can you recommend a paid for one?

Thanks.

I am suspicious of online driver scans. Online virus scans are fine from the big players but drivers I just do not trust.

There are a few ways to ensure drivers are up to date:

Windows Update
This will not update often and will not update the latest versions. It will only update to a version microsoft is content with for running windows.

PC Vendor Website
If you have a major brand such as Dell, HP then you can visit their support / download site, enter the PC model number and see the latest drivers. Some may have a program or control panel icon to check the PC for you.

Individual Manufacturer Website
This is the best option as you will get the latest drivers but some may not be compatible with existing software (such as with dell / hp etc).

The main drivers are:

Graphics Card - usually AMD or nVidia
Motherboard - AMD or Intel brand. This is aka chipset and latest would be from motherboard vendor website - Asus, Abit ... MSI
Network Card - Intel, Broadcomm, Marvel ...
Sound chips - Realtek ...
BIOS - See Motherboard website
Device Firmware - This would include hard disks, DVD drives, printers, routers.

When updating drivers you should only do so if the old drivers are way out of date of faulty. There is also no need to update some drivers if everything is working fine. Certainly there is no need to update the BIOS if the most recent BIOS only 'adds support for new processors'. If you haven't installed a new processor don't update the BIOS.

In summary look at the brand of each component and visit each manufacturer site in turn.

The only drivers I would update regularly are graphics drivers

NVIDIA
http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

AMD
http://support.amd.com/us/gpudownload/Pages/index.aspx

Thanks for replying Phil. I am also suspicious - thats why I was asking!

I am trying to find an update for an Intel sata port controller ICH9 but the intel website is confusing and i'm not sure which one I need.

Well we must all know what Pittsburgh Phil does for a living.
Perhaps something to do with computers?
Just a " punters" guess.

I ve always used seamonkey for the scoreboards particularly b**365 which seems to crash most browsers runs better on this and google for bf but have found chrome keeps crashing recently with lots of tabs open so left a bit unsure what to use for bf now

Seamonkey ?

Since these forums have been useful to me...further to the post 13 Jan, 13.11.

Have been using FF4 beta for thirteen days on BF, as I say was using chrome, personally I think FF4 is better, it's a feel thing though hard to describe. Chrome seems to give the appearance of speed whereas FF4 does go fast.


Both Chrome and FF4 suffer memory leaks though, when they get up to 350Mb i close them and start again.

FF4 is beginning to disappoint...loads of glitches....printing issues (not had any with any other browser previously), Hotmail issues (something to do with javascript, again never had prob prev), issues playing some video clips. Back to Chrome

Re "this is a longstanding problem with firefox"
yes this is correct, on my old PC firefox if it had been running on BF for a while got slower and slower and the memory use went up and up and only shutting it helped. I do remember changing something in about:config or whatever to do with memory which seemed to help, like number of cached in memory pages or memory use or both, can't remember.

One thing to do is install "flashblock" to stop flash **** hogging the PC. It amazes me how much some crap pointless flash bollocks can hog the CPU, which can really show on older PCs that are otherwise fast enough.