Sorry if this is a frequent question, but I just ran into CPU usage trouble today. I was running a program (can't remember what it was), it froze and the only way to escape was to flick the switch and reboot. Now the computer is running painfully slow and CPU is 100%. I have run norton utilities, cleaned the registry (as best I could with regclean), virus scanned but to no avail. Hopefully reformating is not the only solution. Any suggestions (please keep it simple as I am rather computer illiterate). Any help would be appreciated.

press ctrl+alt+del and see what is running,
you can also run drwatson and see if it reports any errors.
see http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html on how to run windows well.

Thanks for the reply. Even after getting rid of running programs with ctrl+alt+del, CPU usage is still 100%. DrWatson was of no help. Any other suggestions? I have been reading posts in other groups and most are beyond my knowledge, ie..fiddling with regedit, etc..

tek-tips.com
computing.net/14896
forum message/13408

what are you using to get the usage?
try clicking start-run-type in sysmon.exe
and click ok, see what windows is reporting it at.

Try downloading AD-Aware and check for AD-Ware and Spy programs that may be running. Go to AD-Aware_Lavasoft.nu for this free program if you do not have it. It will scan for common programs that can slow down your machine and allow you to remove them.

is the CPU still maxed out in safe mode?

Thanks to all for the replies. While the computer still isn't working perfect, changing the vcache min and max value has certainly helped. I don't know if NPF had anything to do with it, but its inability to run coencides with the CPU problem...I'm now running sygate. The only residual problem, which is quite annoying, is that the right mouse click function takes a good 15 seconds to load. Any suggestions? Once again, thanks for all the replies...and Mike, there was no CPU problem in safe mode.

http://computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/18106.html how 2 run m.e well ver.3

http://www.burzurq.com/forum/trevtweak.html how 2 run m.e well ver.4

http://www.computing.net/windowsme/wwwboard/forum/24159.html how 2 run m.e ver.4

Perhaps that something that made your computer suddenly freeze, is making the CPU usage a 100%. if you cannot detect anything out of the ordanary when you Ctrl+Alt+Del then go to msconfig (Start>Run>msconfig), click on the Startup tab and look for stuff that might have weird cherecters or an odd name etc. in addition to looking at the names look at where they are located. this might give you an idea as to what is taking up your system CPU usage.
If you like i could give you a list of the default startups that you will find in msconfig, ie, what you WinMe needs to run.
Also, do you recall perhaps doing anything that might have triggered the computer to suddenly freeze? perhaps you pressed a lot of keys at the same time, or maybe you have a low RAM?
Hope this helps
Cheers
Rooh
PS- im not sure if this forum automatically sends a message when a new thread is posted. if it dosnt please drop me a line in my email id if you need anything else :)