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

Rob,i am just about to go down that avenue,reason being cannot be bothered to a complicated install and it is just plug in the usb cable and bingo it will be picked up as another hardrive !!!!!is that easy or what :-)then copy all you want to the new drive!!!

Mega...

Hi Guys, as a back-up it's ok (I have a lot of these keys with over 10 gig on as back-up data) but it doesn't solve how you can get your programmes over to another hard drive. My problem is I have two hard drives and only one laptop (well more actaully but no way to connect them) but the HD's are the same make.

I don't use USB drives because for normal backup I copy my data accross the network. That spreads it accross three computers which I consider secure enough for my purposes.

If you just want to backup data, then a USB drive should work fine, but why not just buy an old computer and network it? In either case, drive imaging programs should work but I'm not sure which programs can write an image back to an active C: drive.

If I want to replace a hard disk it is usually because it is failing in which case it is best to remove the disk and mount it as a secondary on another machine. This reduces the load on the disk and gives you more chance of recovery.

If you go for a USB drive, make sure that it and your computer are USB2.0. USB1.1 is many times slower. Also be aware of the difference between an (almost) normal hard drive with a USB connection and the solid state or micro drives. The latter, although very convenient are slow and relatively unreliable.

Great minds think alike, I do almost exactly the same as O above. I also copy some critical files to some web space I have which means they are remote and my ISP looks after additional backups ;-)

One of the big problems is knowing what exactly is data? some things are clear like documents but what about settings for programs? portfolios in software etc, these can all be called data and you would probably not want to lose them.

I use a 20Gb Travan tape drive (more, around 30Gb depending on data, with compression) for backups. It has the advantage that I can take monthly full backups of the entire disk (which can be used to restore the disk including Windows etc.) plus daily differential backups (which will bring it up to date). The daily backup is taken automatically before I wake up. I don't worry about what to back up, I just dump everything.

I can cycle through a number of tapes and thereby keep a number of backups going back several months. That means that restoring my system to this morning's state would simply be a case of loading two tapes. Viruses are not a worry since at worst I would go back to the last good backup. I have also used the tapes innumerable times to restore files that I have either accidentally deleted or changed my mind about :-)

The drives are around 100 on Ebay, tapes around 30 also on Ebay (of which you would need 5 or so at least). VERITAS software to do the backups and restore to a bootable system comes with boxed drives and otherwise is quite cheap. There are other makes of software too.

A USB disk as backup would also work but realistically backups would end up being taken sporadically. Also dropping the disk would be a major hazard, particularly if it was the only disk you had and it therefore had all of your backups on it. Even worse if you used it to back up a laptop, since you can just about guarantee that one day you will go travelling with both laptop and backup drive and lose or drop both at the same time :-)