IE and Firefox hoard CPU[Solved on "brute force!"]

General Discussion (off topic) Anything and everyt
1

Hey guys and girls, I hope you can help me out.

Today, I noticed, after needing to use IE7, that it was way slow! I checked the CPU usage and sometimes it went to near 100% CPU usage.

I thought it could be related to my customized HOSTS file, but, Opera works just fine. I also have my HOSTS file set to 0.0.0.0, rather than 127.0.0.1. That way, there won’t even be a loopback and browsing would be normal. It always had been.

I also noticed that, yesterday, IE7 browsing was also slow, when a relative of mine was using it, but I thought it was the connection that was slow. It happens once in a while.

Anyway, I opened IE without any add-ons, but the slowness is still there. Not with the always high use of CPU, but sometimes it reaches near 80% of CPU usage.

I’m not sure if it is related to some tweaking I did, or not (can’t really remember :smiley: ), but, do you know of a tweak (funny choice of word considering all…) that could make it go back to normality?

Thanks

P.S: I’ve been googling for it, but so far couldn’t find anything that could help me out. Maybe looking the wrong way. I’ll keep looking, but if you could help me, I would be tremendously thankful.

Edit: Same situation happens with Firefox! I just checked it out. The memory usage also went to more than 170 000 K!

What could be causing this? Could have been a tweak I made to both browsers? (If I just could remember! Well, I tried Tuneup Utilities 2009 these days, and there was something related to IE and Firefox, but I don’t think I messed with it. I still have it installed and have set those options to default and the problem is still here, so I guess I did not mess with them. I truly can’t remember.)

Tuneup Utilities IE tweak


http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/2250/tuneupiecz9.th.jpg

Tuneup Utilities Firefox tweak


http://img136.imageshack.us/img136/5710/tuneupfirefoxlm2.th.jpg

Edit 2: I just saw that is possible to restore changes made with Tuneup. I’m not sure I did any to IE and Firefox, but will try to do some restore. Will tell in a few moments how it went.

2

It’s hard to get a tweak to fix it, if we don’t know what tweaks you messed it up with. 88)

Why do you need to use it? Would FF work instead? (:AGL)

3

Well, I tried to restore Tuneup Utilities changes. No deal. I restored my system. The slowness is still here. I’ll try to make the following to restore any damaged system file - sfc /scannow

I tried to do it, but I couldn’t. Somehow, Tuneup messed with it? No idea. All I did with Tuneup was to make the start menu suspend button to shutdown the system, as I, and I don’t know why, I couldn’t change it in the control panel. It said I needed administrative rights for that. I couldn’t even do it with super administrator account!

Anyway, I’ll try the sfc command now and see if it can repair anything. I hope it does!

4

I don’t know why that may happen, looks like a plain ugly bug, or possibly malware? I’d search for that. It seems unlikely that a normal tweak would cause it, it may be due to a more fortuitous cause. But dunno. ??? I’d google for “IE CPU” and “Firefox CPU”, for example this is the first result:

http://forums.teamphoenixrising.net/showthread.php?t=23871

Topic split, the problem will receive better attention. :P0l

5

Thanks for the topic split. Indeed, it will let people know of the problem I’m having a lot faster!

I won’t exclude malware, but, apart from IE, which I do not use that often, but still is well protected for my relatives, Firefox, which I use now and then, only has access to it’s own files and folders and to the downloads folder I created. It also can’t change any important registry entries, as it’s access to them is blocked in D+.

I will scan my system, though.

But, I really think that Tuneup Utilities, somehow, messed a lot with the system, as I can’t even perform a sfc scan (it won’t succeed).

Not even restoring my system fixed it. I think, that if no malware is found, which I doubt it is, I will reformat my machine. It is needing it, anyway. Just need to talk to a relative of mine, so that important files and folders are backed up.

After reading the thread you gave the link to, I’m thinking if the problem could be the updated Java, which I do block as default in Opera and perhaps that’s why I see no slow downs with it? I will check that!

If not…

I already wasted an entire noon trying to fix the ■■■■ thing, in all ways I could. A reformat will be a lot faster! :smiley:

Best regards

6

I disabled Java in Firefox, but no deal.

The high CPU usage only happens when I perform search and enter web sites. I think that, if I did do some tweak to IE and Firefox with Tuneup Utilities, then it messed with LinkScanner Pro. I disabled it Firefox and there is still a high CPU usage, but not that high, as LinkScanner Pro (now that I disabled in Firefox) only protects from the background and no real time analyses to any site.

I will reinstall it and see if it fixes this issue.

I’ll give some news in a few moments.

7

Hope the format works good!

(For some reason, since you keep talking about all your relatives, I image that at your house there are a crowd of people all waiting to get the computer. :P)

8

DNS? ??? Please ellaborate.

9

Yes. Well, what I meant to say is that the high (nearly 100%) CPU usage does not happen when I enter either iE7 or Firefox. It only happens when I search for anything on google, for example, or when I type a domain in the address bar and press enter.

I thought that, somehow, any tweak that I could have made to IE and Firefox, could have messed with the way LinkScanner Pro works. But, I just reinstalled it, after a full (all I could) clean to the system and the high CPU usage is still there. I guess I can exclude this one out.

I also considered that could be related to the DNS Client service, that could have been enabled, but it is still set to manual. Due to my HOSTS file. But, it is nothing related to that, as I never had any issues with it. It would be the first time in a long time. This is out of scenario.

Honestly, I think that when I used to Tuneup Utilities to tweak my system, so that I could use the start menu Suspend button to shutdown, it did more than that.

As I already mentioned, I can’t make use of this command - sfc to repair system files. It reaches 95% and then I get the warning that it couldn’t apply the repairs.

I really believe that only with a clean install I’ll be able to get the system back as I want.

Best regards

10

They could be just 2 or 3… or maybe the whole bunch… anyway…

I reinstalled firefox and seems everything is back to normality with it.

Since I can’t reinstall IE7, I guess I’ll just format the system. I was needing it anyway. First, I’ll see if I can fix the sfc process, so that I can fix the system files. If not, well… :smiley:

11

Done deal! Brand new installation!

IE7 is even faster than it used to be!

Best regards