Audio/video skipping on laptop

Juzza12

This only started a couple of days ago, it's happening even if i'm not doing anything else at the same time.

Went to Windows Task Manager and the CPU usage is jumping up and down at times between 29% and 100% even of i'm just playing a song through Itunes.

Have no idea what to check for or do.

Juzza12

Anyone.... help!:o

Laz123

Make, model, specs?

esuhl

Does "Task Manager" show which application is causing the spikes in CPU load?

Have you run an anti-malware application to make sure there's nothing dodgy slowing everything down?

Do you have lots of applications running on startup? You can see what's running by looking at these registry keys:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Is the hard drive defragmented and does it have enough free space (so there's enough space to write the pagefile and any temporary files)?

Does the performance improve when the laptop is plugged into the mains (or the Power Saving options in the control panel are adjusted)?

Just a few thoughts...

Juzza12

esuhl wrote: »

Does "Task Manager" show which application is causing the spikes in CPU load?

Have you run an anti-malware application to make sure there's nothing dodgy slowing everything down?

Do you have lots of applications running on startup? You can see what's running by looking at these registry keys:
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

Is the hard drive defragmented and does it have enough free space (so there's enough space to write the pagefile and any temporary files)?

Does the performance improve when the laptop is plugged into the mains (or the Power Saving options in the control panel are adjusted)?

Just a few thoughts...

It seems to be perform.exe and msmpeng.exe causing the spikes. I know msmpeng.exe is MS Security Dessentials and read that could spike if it's clashing with other security software but there is no other security. I actually completely wiped/reset the laptop a couple of months back because of this issue.

Ran Malwarebytes (quick scan) and it found and removed 7 things.

If i've done the right thing looking at the registry then there are 26 things listed, but it started with HKEY Local Systems?

Just went to Disc Defragmenter (never done it before) it says Windows 13% fragmented, Data and System Never Run.

The laptop is always plugged into the mains as the battery is dead and wouldn't work with it in.

esuhl

Juzza12 wrote: »

It seems to be perform.exe and msmpeng.exe causing the spikes. I know msmpeng.exe is MS Security Dessentials and read that could spike if it's clashing with other security software but there is no other security. I actually completely wiped/reset the laptop a couple of months back because of this issue.

I think mspeng.exe is part of Windows Defender... Does the problem go away if you try the suggestions here: http://helpdeskgeek.com/windows-vista-tips/what-is-msmpeng-exe/

Hopefully that should fix the problem, but if not...

Juzza12 wrote: »

Ran Malwarebytes (quick scan) and it found and removed 7 things.

Do you remember if they were just tracking cookies? If not, it might be a good idea to run scans with other anti-malware tools (e.g. Spybot, your antivirus).

Juzza12 wrote: »

If i've done the right thing looking at the registry then there are 26 things listed, but it started with HKEY Local Systems?

Ah... HKLM is short for "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" and HKCU is short for "HKEY_CURRENT_USER".

You should see a list of name/value pairs in these hives. Essentially each one runs a program when anyone on the machine logs on (for HKLM) or the current user (HKCU). If you look through the list and do a web search on each one, you can probably find out which ones are important and which ones might be part of malware (or simply unused/unwanted). Some applications can use quite a bit of processing power, so preventing them from starting automatically can really improve performance.

To back up a registry key, you can either select it and use the "export" option via the menus, or, what I often do, is create a shortcut on the desktop and use the registry name/value for the shortcut name/location. That way, you can just double-click the icon if you ever want to start the application manually.

Be careful if you're not sure what you're doing with the registry, though, as you can seriously mess things up...

Juzza12 wrote: »

Just went to Disc Defragmenter (never done it before) it says Windows 13% fragmented, Data and System Never Run.

Might be worth running the defragmenter to see if that helps. And is there much free space on the drive? If you're running short that can cause everything to slow down while the PC tries to find space to read/write the pagefile, etc.

Juzza12 wrote: »

The laptop is always plugged into the mains as the battery is dead and wouldn't work with it in.

Maybe check the Power Options in the control panel to make sure that CPU performance isn't being throttled...?