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Lately my CPU has had a huge surge in usage, nearing and reaching 100% regularly. I know for a fact it's not a fragmented disk, it gets de-fragged every week, or overheating (I just checked and it's at 60 Celcius). I'm also fairly certain it's not a virus, it get's scheduled scans by MSE and Malwarebytes every Mon/Thurs.

My next step was to use msconfig.exe eliminate as many services/startup processes as I could. I started by disabling every single one, and it worked wonders, except for one problem. There was no sound OR internet.

So my question for you guys is what are the msconfig services that should be enabled to have sound and internet, but all of the others turned off. I looked at the list, but I was totally and completely lost in it.
Have you checked which processes are actually using the CPU when it surges? That would be the first place I'd start.
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Wishbone: Have you checked which processes are actually using the CPU when it surges? That would be the first place I'd start.
No single process is hogging the cpu, it's flipping all over the place.
I thought you eliminated services/processes to find the cause, not just kill them all and hope for the best?

1. Reboot the computer now.
2. Follow this process again but this time one-by-one to find the cause.
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Wishbone: Have you checked which processes are actually using the CPU when it surges? That would be the first place I'd start.
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ggf162: No single process is hogging the cpu, it's flipping all over the place.
You probably checked this, but did you make all processes visible?
In Windows 7 under the taskmanager - processes there is an option to "show processes of all users" (I'm sorry, I don't have the English version of Windows 7, so I don't know exactly how it's named in English). It needs admin rights.

Just recently I had a process run away, and it only showed after enabling this option.
I would check the system processes first, sometimes I have experienced Windows 7 having multiple instances of taskhost.exe, dllhost.exe, and rundll32.exe running in the background making the computer run horribly.
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MikeFE: You probably checked this, but did you make all processes visible?
In Windows 7 under the taskmanager - processes there is an option to "show processes of all users" (I'm sorry, I don't have the English version of Windows 7, so I don't know exactly how it's named in English). It needs admin rights.

Just recently I had a process run away, and it only showed after enabling this option.
The top 3 CPU heavy processes are Firefox, my Starcraft 2 client (currently optimizing) and System Idle Process. Everything except SIP is peaking at ~17%, so those don't appear to be the problem. I suspect my CPU is just shitty and can't handle the stuff it used to, hence me trying to get rid of as many as I can.
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ggf162: Lately my CPU has had a huge surge in usage, nearing and reaching 100% regularly. I know for a fact it's not a fragmented disk, it gets de-fragged every week, or overheating (I just checked and it's at 60 Celcius). I'm also fairly certain it's not a virus, it get's scheduled scans by MSE and Malwarebytes every Mon/Thurs.

My next step was to use msconfig.exe eliminate as many services/startup processes as I could. I started by disabling every single one, and it worked wonders, except for one problem. There was no sound OR internet.

So my question for you guys is what are the msconfig services that should be enabled to have sound and internet, but all of the others turned off. I looked at the list, but I was totally and completely lost in it.
Here you go:

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/

I've been using his service guides since Windows XP. Just be sure to read the warnings.
Post edited August 27, 2013 by Dsuljic
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Dsuljic: Here you go:

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/

I've been using his service guides since Windows XP. Just be sure to read the warnings.
Trying this, will report back results.
Hard disk fragmentation wouldn't cause high CPU usage, and overheating as a cause is putting the cart before the horses - i.e. your system may overheat due to high CPU usage, not the other way round.

As has been mentioned you appear to have taken something of a 'nuke it from orbit' approach to fixing this! But it does sound like it's something that's set to run on startup that is causing the problem.

Have a look at HijackThis. It's a good program for seeing everything that your computer is set to do on startup, and selectively fixing it. Be very careful with it though, there is a very real risk (especially if you go in and disable everything you don't recognise or like the look of) of stopping your system from booting.
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ggf162: No single process is hogging the cpu, it's flipping all over the place.
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MikeFE: You probably checked this, but did you make all processes visible?
In Windows 7 under the taskmanager - processes there is an option to "show processes of all users" (I'm sorry, I don't have the English version of Windows 7, so I don't know exactly how it's named in English). It needs admin rights.

Just recently I had a process run away, and it only showed after enabling this option.
Process Explorer is a good tool to see all hidden processes - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-gb/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx
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Dsuljic: Here you go:

http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/

I've been using his service guides since Windows XP. Just be sure to read the warnings.
Well, I'm back. It seems marginally better, we'll see if it got fixed yet.

*A few minutes after above line*

Well after watching a 5 minute Youtube video in 480p, I managed to encounter no glitches (the picture freezes A LOT if you don't move the mouse on this computer), and ZDoom hasn't stuttered yet either.
You could also use the free and great sofztware ProcessExplorer - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653
You may want to update the OP with OS version and CPU model. If OS is Win7 you can use built in Resource Monitor to find the culprit. Task manager doesn't help at times.