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Thread ID: 128813 2013-01-16 22:01:00 100% CPU activity NZHawk (4093) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
1323242 2013-01-16 23:34:00 That's great!
I'll apply some thermal paste & see what happens from there.

Does the thermal paste dry out if the heat sink has had a lot of dust?
NZHawk (4093)
1323243 2013-01-16 23:36:00 Clean both first before you apply some thermal paste to it Speedy Gonzales (78)
1323244 2013-01-16 23:37:00 I suspect you'll find it's the Microsoft Security Essentials / client burning up your CPU, as it scans your program when launched.

techat-jack.blogspot.co.nz

It looks like the max supported / tested CPU is a Pentium 4:

* RK80532PC072512, 2.8 GHz, Northwood, FSB400, L2 Cache 512KB
kingdragonfly (309)
1323245 2013-01-16 23:39:00 Thankyou NZHawk (4093)
1323246 2013-01-17 00:48:00 Start task manager (right click the task bar and select it), go to performance, click the cpu title to sort by CPU usage, see what's using how much of your CPU.
the celeron is unfortuately quite a weak CPU and modern programs tend to be written for more powerful hardware, you may need to research efficient alternatives to whatever is hogging the CPU. You could also try a less resource hungry player, for MP3's there are many but even the venerable old winamp with the classic skin is a good choice for saving some resources.

I have a sempron 2800+ running XP and MSE at home, but other than set it up I haven't tried much on it. I'll try playing an MP3 tonight and see how much CPU usage it has, should be a good comparison.
dugimodo (138)
1323247 2013-01-17 00:55:00 Good suggestion! Thank you NZHawk (4093)
1323248 2013-01-17 01:02:00 Just tried an mp33 on XP sp3 with media player and the cpu usage was about 7%, 65 is rather high. Whenu (9358)
1323249 2013-01-17 01:15:00 Thanks for the confirmation - NZHawk (4093)
1323250 2013-01-17 02:04:00 Just tried an mp33 on XP sp3 with media player and the cpu usage was about 7%, 65 is rather high.

Yes but 7% of what? what's your processor? I agree it's too high but you need to take relative CPU power into account as well as OS. For example my i5 barely registers it's doing anything for MP3 playback, but at almost twice the clock speed, 4 times the cores, and much more instructions per clock it would have to be much more than 8 times as powerful as a celeron single core. 5-10% of that could be more than 100% of a celeron.
dugimodo (138)
1323251 2013-01-17 02:15:00 Cleaned the cpu heat sink & applied a fresh application of thermal paste
unfortunately - still causes the cpu to average 65%
starting another application causes the cpu to top out at 100% for 35 or so seconds.

I take on board what you've shared dugimodo. I think it's just something that we're going to have to live with or upgrade to a newer unit.

Thank you all for your input
NZHawk (4093)
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