Alan - if your CPU usage dropped after a system recovery but seems to later again be excessive, have you checked to see if you've got some kind of virus? Perhaps the system recovery cleans it up temporarily but there is one or more infected files still on the hard drive that you ultimately end up reinfecting your machine. Just another thought.
I am not shure how old you PC is, but I just had to replace 2 of mine that had the same problems. There were a lot of bad ASUS motherboards on the market, so if your PC is less then 6 month old and you have an ASUS board there is a good chance that it needs to be replaced. I believe they did a recall on the boards Gertsman
I wouldn't say the problem gradually got worse after the system recovery. The improvement(less cpu usage)has remained. It seems like something is running in the background that is using it up, some kind of conflict. After the recovery listening to the radio cpu usage went from 55% to 15%, and this morning after the two items I disabled yesterday, cpu usage with the radio is averaging around 3%. So we'll see what happens when the markets open. As for it being a virus, I say anything is possible. Isn't there an internet site or two where I could go and do a thorough check? Any recommendations would be appreciated. As to the motherboard, it's an Intel 845 chipset, a little over a year old. IBM said there weren't any notices out about it. Thanks.
Gnome...Didn't you post to my cpu problem this morning? I read it by clicking on it in my email, but it doesn't show up on this thread. Where did it go? Anyway, here is the latest... although the warrantee has expired, since I brought this problem to IBM's attention while it was still under warrantee, they pretty much told me that they'll give me another computer if the problem persists after putting the original Nvidia card in and doing a complete system recovery(this was my idea, maybe I should have kept my mouth shut). They're as stumped as me, and apparently like me, ready to admit defeat. I can't thank everyone enough for their generous input. This site is a great bunch of people. Alan
I posted with the idea of backup HDs. (1) A "system recovery" may overwrite the problem if it is in the OS/Drivers. (2) If it's other software, the recovery may do no good. What I suggested before was to start fresh with another HD. Load the OS, drivers, and your trader programs only. If that clears it up, the problem is likely a software glitch in your current setup. If it doesn't clear up, it's likely in the chipset, MB, or video driver incompatibility. BTW, I think every trader who makes a living from the markets is NUTS if he doesn't have DOUBLE backups for his trading computer... shit happens, you know! (I look at it this way... if I lost EVERYTHING, I could make a reasonable recovery. Without backups it would take at least a few DAYS to reload from scratch.... and would REALLY piss me off 'cause I know better. With 2 BU HDs... with each costing about $20 after write-off and rebate... I can be back up in 2 minutes + have a spare in case I screw up the first.) Even the dumbest trader should be able to figure the r/r on this one.
Alan - something running in the background and "a conflict" are two different things. A conflict implies somekind of hardware glitch resulting in lower throughput - which would not show up in CPU utilization, just slower actual throughput. High CPU can be caused by stuff running in the background - buggy automatic update software, viruses, etc. If you don't have a virus scanner installed, you definitely should - way too many nasty things floating around to not spend a few bucks to stop. Check out the Norton Anti-Virus website. What stuff have you been disabling that's been reducing CPU utilization? BTW, maybe I'm just jinxed with anything IBM, but I haven't seen an IBM computer yet that hasn't had some hardware or software anomoly. I had to ship a half dozen IBM notebooks back a few years ago because the damn things were just such a pain in the butt to deal with between their unique hardware "tweaks" and their own crap software and/or drivers they insisted on using - replaced them with Toshibas and never had a single problem after that. Have run into similar anomolous behavior with IBM desktops and won't use one every again. Hope you get things to at least acceptable levels for you. Good luck.
I don't know if you resolved your problem yet but I was told today by a tech at my office that if you run 2 different cards for two different monitor then it is good idea to make sure the charts don't overlap on the two monitors or you could have problems of the cpu maxing out. It is easier on the resources to have a dual card if you are going to have the same set of charts running on both monitors (like have a 5 minute chart extend on one whole moniter and half way thru on the 2nd moniter).
I know that Intel MBs aren't considered the glitziest or ones with the best performance/bells and whistles.... But the Techs at Equis (makers of MetaStock Pro) told me long ago... "Intel all the way" ...CPU, Chipset, MB... for reliability.... FWIW. I've done so and must admit to having ZERO hardware problems in 10+ years.