Have you turned off any "unnecessary services" while tweaking your system?
If so, turn them back on.

I have seen many people shoot themselves in the foot by doing this.

--

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP
Windows Desktop Experience


"TiggerGTO" <TiggerGTO@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:4BB28B5A-F9A5-4111-B148-27FDEACCF3E5@microsoft.com...
>I built a Q9450 quad-core based system with 8GB of RAM and have installed
> Vista Ultimate 64-bit, SP1. Frequently, something seems to cycle through
> the
> processors making them spike. It can last from 10-15 seconds to several
> minutes. During this time, the system is quite unusable. The mouse
> responds
> very erratically to movement, and typing is nearly impossible. I've tried
> watching processor manager, but can't see any processes sort to the top
> when
> sorted by utilization. The performance graph looks like a seismograph
> during
> an earthquake on all 4 processors.
>
> There are a couple of correlations that I have found. First, if I start
> from a cold start (i.e. with the computer powered off), I will get one of
> these cycles about 5-7 minutes after starting Windows that will last 4-5
> minutes. This is fairly consistent but does not always happen. Also,
> connecting or disconnecting hardware, like an iPod or an external USB
> drive
> seems to be likely to trigger one of these episodes.
>
> Another thing that I've noticed is that the system seems very slow to
> detect
> the insertion of a disk into or the ejection of a disk from the DVD ROM
> drive. This may or may not be related.
>
> It's almost like some hardware detection drivers or services are
> periodically freaking out and making the machine unusable.
>
> Has anybody seen anything similar to this or have any suggestions for
> things
> to check or changes to try?
>
> Thanks,
> Danny