Yes system idle process is ok when I start to do something (whats UD?). You are going to laugh at this but last night and today, every 5-10 minutes a virtual dog barks at me through my browser! My dog keeps looking at me! I have no idea where it's coming from, AM is the only window I have open at the open (&AOL). I wonder if this is causing the problem?

Mr E

Have you any utilities on the computer that will measure temperatures?

It might be worth making sure the memory chips are inserted properly (power off first).

What is Firefox?

Optimist, no I haven't, are the easy to find?

Firefox = broswer, http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Mr E

For UD agent see http://www.moneyam.com/TradersRoom/ShowPostList?fID=1&tID=2649

If something is barking at you then you have some programs that should not be there. Have a look at the proccesses in task manager to see if there is anything suspicious. Running Adaware and Spubot in safe mode may help.

Thanks. I can't beleive this, computer is back to normal now and only a dog bark per hour! Very odd.

Mr E ... I noticed you were using Win Task Mngr to identify your running processes, and re. svchost.exe, you mentioned "... - no idea what this is? ".

I recommend a Free utility called 'Process Explorer', from www.sysinternals.com . It gives more info than Task Mngr (for example, it would tell you that svchost.exe is a Microsoft process, namely Generic Host Process for Win32 Services). Very helpfull for identifing what is, and more importantly, what shouldn't be, running on your PC.

Re. your problem, it's CPU Usage Graph might help you. As you know, Windows Task Mngr has a CPU usage graph, but it's just a total. On the (similar) Sys Internals graph, as you move your mouse back over the graph, it identifies the process which was consuming the most CPU at that historical moment. So, instead of watching Task Mngr CPU column live, you can wait for a CPU 100% excursion, and run back over the CPU graph for the last few mins and see what process caused it.

D.

optimist,thanks i'll try that,

Mr E,
i had a simular problem ages ago,it was a program that come with my ASUS motherboard that looked at TEMP etc,i was getting reboots for no reason,
i stopped using it and has been ok since,and i use alot of programs and IE windows together,
hope it might be that,

steve

Mr Euro, do you run Winpatrol by any chance? It does bark. The only program that I could find that does so :-)

Thanks all. I spoke to soon as the laptop started messing around again, CPU at 100%, shutting down, screen only works when it gets a bang etc... Will look at it later and run the progs suggested.

On another machine now.

Kayak, not that Iknow off, could do with something like that though to replace my bell. I use it when I want some food/drink, in fact ever since I have been ill - on the other hand the missus is used to the bell and she might start to complain with a bark :-)

Me E

When I asked about utilities to check temperatures it was with the idea of using them to monitor the computer though as Scussy said, they have got the potential to disrupt.

If screen only works when it gets a bang, that is a hardware fault and you should get it replaced.

Hi Op, to be honest I think I have half a dozen problems with it. I may follow Dils advice and just buy a desktop, all my laptops have ended up broken (ok so I have smashed a few up but not all of them) and they are not great at being on 20 hours per day.

Desktops are faster and better value for money unless you want portability.

However, it is possible to run some laptops hard. I use a Tosh which has run virtualy 24/7 for over 2 years. The only problem I had was with hard disks. I got round that one by fitting an Hitachi HDD.

Optimist, how did you change from HD to HD :-) I could probably handle coping the data over but do you need to re-install all your programmes/applications (i.e. zonealarm etc..) again!? I wouldn't even know where to find my registration keys and it must take ages.

Dieng the software download is working well thanks. I also am about to run this:
http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

which I found from here:

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Software/Diagnostics/

this also looks good:


http://www.astra32.com/

PS - Laptop is working fine again now - incredible.

Think I will leave this sort of function to Kayak:-)

This is an advanced feature.

By setting the wrong motherboard or the wrong clock, you might hurt your system.
Use it at your own risk and only if you really know what you are doing :-)

No problems, but here's a site that checks out your pc's spec (if you don't know it) also suggests CPU upgrades for your pc. http://www.powerleap.com

Hope this helps someone Mike...

Mr E

How did I change HDD? See http://www.moneyam.com/TradersRoom/ShowPostList?fID=1&tID=111&from=2422 ;)

:-) Yes I know but I thought it only copied the data! Will look in more detail....

Found this utilit which is free and very good:

http://pcanswers.co.uk/tutorials/?pagetypeid=2&articleid=11179&subsectionid=607&subsubsectionid=0

Still it's not a solution to imagine my data to another HD.

Mr E.

why dont you buy a external usb hardrive and backup that way,or is that not what you want ????

Mega...

Mega/Mr Euro

The USB hard drive is something I'm looking at as a quick but comprehensive back up system. Is this what you use Rick?

Question to Spaceman/Kayak/Optimist - is there any significant drawback to this method?

Thanks
Rob