I am running windows media center 2005 and I am have extreme difficulty with my cpu!. on average my cpu usage rate is (viewed from the task manager) between 40% and 70%. when doing one task such as trying to watch a video it jumps to 99% and slows the entire computer down. IT is not a virus I have formatted many times and cannot figure out what the problem is!. my cpu is a AMD Athlon 64 3500+ socket 939. I cannot do much with the cpu usage at this high if anyone can help me I would greatly appreaciate it!

edhart76135, probably key to the usage is the fact that you're watching a video. Video is memory intensive and maxes out your machine when running. A possible solution is to increase video memory. Some video cards come with as little as 64k and do a LOT of buffering which ups usage. HTH. Ed in Texas.

thanks for the advice! I have a 6800GS Super series geforce nvidia graphics card! I know for a fact that it can play a lil more the videos! but its the problem that im trying to fix with the actual CPU Usage. The only thing taking up cpu usage and thats the system idle process. then apart from that apparently theres something thats not showing up on task manager taking up the rest and its quite annoying!

If you installed WMCE from a CD this could be the problem (counterfeit). M$ does not sell WMCE OS other than have it preinstalled on brand name PCs only. i_XpUser

What this doing on sale at my local store?? http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=2956&category_id=225&manufacturer_id=0 Turn it off, wait a while, turn it back on again.

it's classic Caveat emptor. Quoted from this MS page: Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 is only available pre-installed on computers sold by PC manufacturers. You can purchase a PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 pre-installed at retail consumer electronic stores, direct from PC manufacturers, or through online consumer electronics Web sites. i_XpUser

So if I bought a mouse or a hard drive with the WMCE OEM CD I would be ok or not?? Turn it off, wait a while, turn it back on again.