Need new CPU, and I need suggestions.

[Dr. Orange]

So. Yesterday while I was trying to enjoy what I have left of my social life. TF2, KF, and Garry's Mod all broke for me. Gmod especially. While going into further investigation, it was my CPU that was getting overloaded. 100% all the way. It stayed this way for sometime even after I stopped gaming. So I guess it's time for me to mod my laptop. 

 

So. Suggestions need. 

[LoneWolf]

Can't reccomend anything without you telling us the socket, board, and current CPU.

[DZComposer]

If this is a laptop, you can probably forget about doing a CPU swap as many laptops have the CPU soldered directly to the mobo. Even if it did have a standard socket, the question of adequate cooling comes in. The cooling system was designed for the CPU that the OEM put in the laptop. If you put something more powerful in there, it likely will not be cooled properly and may perform poorly, or, worse, fry itself extra crispy.

Generally, the procedure for upgrading a laptop CPU is to buy a new laptop.

Now, a sudden high CPU load is not necessarily an indication of CPU issues. I'd look for a software-related cause first. More than likely some program is eating CPU resources. If you use Norton or Macafee as your AV, then there is a likely suspect. Sure you can throw a faster CPU at it. Or you can find the culprit program and close/fix/uninstall/update it.

If you still want to do this for some reason, please provide your laptop make/model and current CPU.

[Dr. Orange]

Well it's not really sudden, it's been around for sometime now. And I have gone into Norton and slapped it a couple of times just to make TF2 night. And most likely in the next 1-3 years, I'm just going to build my own desktop but for the mean time I could reuse the CPU again when that time comes. Save motha green. 

 

But my battlestation right now is a HP Pavilion Entertainment PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo. This PC of mine had been around since '07.

[Fox-Shot]

Have you tried again since then? Did your Aero also disable itself when it happened?

 

It could have been WinSAT testing your computer if you haven't disabled it.

[LoneWolf]

Well it's not really sudden, it's been around for sometime now. And I have gone into Norton and slapped it a couple of times just to make TF2 night. And most likely in the next 1-3 years, I'm just going to build my own desktop but for the mean time I could reuse the CPU again when that time comes. Save motha green. 

 

But my battlestation right now is a HP Pavilion Entertainment PC with a Intel Core 2 Duo. This PC of mine had been around since '07.

 

Fact of the matter is that I had a laptop very similar and I literally could not game past about 2010. You just need to buy a new laptop. Even a cheap one packed with an i5 with onboard graphics will handle stuff better than dedicated graphics from 08' could. Look at refurb comps from Dell Outlet.

[OneUnder]

Save all of the mental and financial anguish you'll go through by trying to upgrade your current laptop by waiting, saving your money on top of what you hopefully already have, and building your own desktop when you have the chance.  Easy upgrade ability, oftentimes superior airflow and cooling, etc.

[Icy]

Yeah, even if it's tempting to upgrade a laptop and/or try to fix it and all, a Core 2 Duo is pretty old, and if you're having problems, and since that PC probably won't do very much for much longer, I would just build my own desktop.

 

Much, much, cheaper than a new laptop, and as others have said, I would completely put upgrading a laptop out of my mind.

But as for what to do in the meantime, I'm not sure. Keep troubleshooting or researching what the problem is.

 

And for suggestions on what sort of desktop you should build, a lot depends on when exactly you would be building one. New parts are coming out all the time, prices going up/down, etc.

Good luck, though.

[Vulvokunvrii]

Try an ASUS tower, its pretty good for a CPU.

[DZComposer]

Well it's not really sudden, it's been around for sometime now.

I'd still check you software. High load is not really a symptom of CPU failure, nor does it mean your CPU is not powerful enough outright (I've seen software issues max-out quad i7 CPUs.). A good system cleanup and optimization can work wonders.

One thing to try is get rid of Norton and install something lightweight, like MSSE. Of course lightweight packages do not have the features the full suites do, but if you need to get some extra room out of your CPU, it may be a trade worth making so long as you don't use the internet irresponsibly.

Also, check for unnecessary processes and services running. Use MSConfig or edit the registry to stop programs you don't need starting with Windows from starting with Windows.

If it's just too cluttered, you can always nuke it from orbit and start-over. Of course it goes without saying that you should backup all your data before doing this.

[psy_commando]

Um, aren't Pavillon the name for their tower PCs ?

And that oddly sounds like our good old friend SuperFetch..

Its some system service that supposedly monitors your activity and tries to predict what you'll use, and load it into RAM from the HDD. However if you don't follow a routine, that becomes a serious pain in the ass, as it thrashes the drive at the wrong moment most of the time, and makes the CPU run hot.

I was sure I'd have to change my laptop because it climbed to 80c and over very quickly and with mild system load. And oddly when I disabled SuperFetch suddenly heat wasn't a problem anymore ! And now it idles at ~55c instead of ~70c ! I did the same on my desktop and now my HDD isn't thrashing 24/7 anymore ! And none of the bad things people said would happen, like slower boot or slower app loading, ever happened and its been 1-2 months since then !
In fact now that my PC isn't busy throwing all the crap in the RAM onto the HDD its more responsive, not by much, but still enough to notice. And now I got enough memory free, I don't have to worry about having everything freeze on me..

Some will argue that it makes use of your unused memory, and if you ever happen to use what it loaded you might make the software work faster. IF there isn't any separate resources to load from the HDD... Which in 90% of the time it does

If you want to check if its really the main cause of your problems, go in the task manager -> service tab. Then in the name column try to find SysMain. The Description column should read Superfetch. Then right click on it, select go to process it should show you the correct process on the process tab automatically. You may have to press "show process from all users" on the process tab first though, can't remember.

Anyways, once you're at the process, check the CPU column to see an aproximate CPU usage of the process. I also recommend on the process tab to click on "View" at the top, then select column. Then you want to check a few things : CPU Time, and Page Faults

CPU Time : tells you how much time the process was given access to the CPU. Higher value == Use the CPU often (doesn't indicate CPU load at all)

Page Faults : This is one of the most important ! Superfetch is going to be making constantly a crapload of those. Its basically indicates the nb of times the process has to page/unpage memory (If I'm not mistaken). In any case, the higher, the worst. Because HDD operations are slow as hell, unlike RAM operations.

So, yeah, if its currently using a lot of cpu, has used a lot of CPU Time, and is constantly making new page faults, that might be part of your problem. Though there might be more to it. And you don't have to disable Superfetch if you don't want to. Its just that I'm a grumpy programmer and don't like having my PC doing pointless stuff I don't want it to do XD

*Also, the forum seems to think its funny to delete the text I'm writing randomly. I rewrote this 3 times before writing it in notepad and pasting it in here. Its the first time I see that happen