High CPU Usage

I have a bit of an unusual problem with my laptop. One day last week I started it up and noticed it was running slow, so I checked in the task manager and saw that the CPU usage was about 30% but nothing on the list of processes was using any processing power.

My first reaction was to run antivirus and spyware scanners, which found nothing.

Next I turned off indexing in the services even though there was no hard disk activity. As expected, no difference.

So I reformatted, only to find that I was still having the problem.

After some experimentation, I found that turning off the wifi card makes the CPU usage drop to normal levels. But there's nothing being sent or received when its on so that doesn't make sense.

My only remaining theory is that my wifi drivers are using a very large amount of processing power, but if that were the case why would that begin suddenly when it had never been a problem before?


Long story short is I'm stumped. I cant figure out what is causing this problem or why a reformat didn't fix it. If anyone can suggest anything I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

First of all, formatting a HD should not be one steps in solving problems. If you find yourself thinking about doing reformmating and reinstalling your OS, the problem wont be solved, it will just come up again- as in your case.

Your situation involves portable power. A wifi radio require juice.

If your using vista, follow this:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/servicecfg.htm
http://www.blackviper.com/WinVista/supertweaks.htm

for xp:
http://www.blackviper.com/WinXP/servicecfg.htm

basically these are service configuration guides. Follow the "Safe" list (then the tweaked list) and they might fix your problem, if they dont, then you would just see system speed and performance improvements. Highly recommended.

I'll keep looking around for specific solutions to your problem