What causes my cpu usage to shoot up to 100% and lock up?

Question

I have a dell xps. with 63 GB of data and 169 GB free. when i try to play videos or look at pictures it will often lock up and when i hit cntl + alt+ del it shows my CPU usage at 100% and i have to re-boot. thanks

this happens when the ONLY thing i am doing is playing one video (30 mins or so) and it never used to do that. i sorted the CPU usage and explorer is at the top with 99. but there is nothing running...

Answer 1

youve got junk running in the background http://bartman1.blogspot.com/ go to this site and follow the if your computer runs slow

Answer 2

i spotted an identical component, it in simple terms began the final day or so. Cpu purely is going up on IE as quickly as I get in a Yahoo video games room like GIN. go away the room and it is going down. I sent Yahoo a project msg the day beforehand of this----have not heard returned.

Answer 3

In Task Manager , where you see CPU is 100% at ctrl+alt+del window, siwtch to processes tab and sort running processes acccording to CPU usage.

Process name may be meaningless, in that case post the process name...

Answer 4

I think you def have a virus, might be a trojan horse. The more programs and files you open the more it will spread.

Update your Antivirus, and run a full system scan. Also try and run an Anti-Spyware software to eliminate any problems.

Hope this helps...

Answer 5

Well CPU intensive programs will like Adobe Photoshop or 3D Games. If you have to reboot consider getting an older version it will use less of your processor or get a better processor.

Answer 6

Running too many programs might cause this , but as you say you are trying to play videos or pictures , so check if you have too many programs running in the backgroung , and might be of low memory , check your memory too ...

Answer 7

too many programs running...or maybe a virus...