taskmgr.exe is running at 50% to 99% consistently and CPU usage is always at 100%. What can I do to counteract this problem? I only have 19 processes running, and taskmgr seems to be running consistently high. No cd in cd drive, and I have an 80 gig HD. Thanks for your help!

Go to task manager and click processes and get back to us to let us know what process is actually consuming the CPU power.

Usually its system cleaning up temp files etc... 19 processes? I have 37! WebKing, Windows XP General Topics

try running a disk defrag. if it is extremely fragmented, the cpu has to work twice as hard to access the files

Tried disk defrag--did not work. Here is the process list with NO programs running, just logged into the desktop: tskmgr.exe is always in flux between 50 and 70% system idle process is running 20 to 30 (except when the cpu is at 100%) explorer.exe process is running 12 to 20% svchost.exe process is running 03 to 05% lsass.exe is running 03 to 04% Thanks for any further advice...