My secondary PC (Windows XP 2002 Service Pack 2) has started to slow down. I suspect there is a program(s) running in the background that causes the yellow CPU busy light to come on at a constant one second interval. Blink, blink, blink …
I checked the Task Manager List (Processes) and it indicates that nothing is running (99% idle).
When I burn a DVD-R (using ImgBurn) I often get a non-recoverable error, which I suspect is caused by the CPU becoming over-loaded.
Here are some of the errors that I’ve been getting recently when the burn operation fails. Each one is from a separate burn operation and all occurred more than once (a lot of coasters!). One was from a ‘test’ burn where ImgBurn didn’t even activate the laser and never actually ‘burned’ the DVD-R (no coaster ).
W 12:39:31 Retry Failed - Reason: Cannot Write Medium - Incompatible Format
W 11:26:20 Failed to Read Sector 431232 - Reason: Unknown (CRC or ECC Error) (ASC: 0x10, ASCQ: 0x90)
W 21:09:06 Failed to Write Sectors 227712 - 227743 - Reason: Unknown (Internal Target Failure) (ASC: 0x44, ASCQ: 0x86)
E 21:29:25 Device Not Ready - Reason: Logical Unit not ready, Cause not reportable
W 12:40:15 Failed to Write Sectors 945792 - 945823 - Reason: Unknown (Internal Target Failure) (ASC: 0x44, ASCQ: 0x86)
W 11:46:30 Miscompare at LBA: 10754, Offset: 2, File: \VIDEO_TS\VTS_01_1.VOB
None of these errors are valid for the drive since when they occur, I re-boot the PC and start over and the burn is usually successful. Same DVD-R blank media I’ve been using for years.
Another symptom I noticed that when I do a burn that fails the buffers were having trouble staying full (both the Device buffer and the Image buffer). In the past that never seemed to occur. Both would fill up (solid blue line) and stay that way until the burn was complete.
When this first started to occur, about six months ago, I suspected the DVD burner drive. In the past 6 months I have replaced that drive with four different new DVD burners (On-Lites, Sonys and LGs) and these burner problems seem to be getting more frequent.
I’ve been successfully burning DVD-Rs since 2003, when I first got this PC. As I recall, the CPU light would only flicker during a burn which indicated to me that it wasn’t being used 100%. Now, during a burn, that light stays on constantly.
I’ve used AVG anti-virus, Malwarebytes anti-malware and Avast to scan my system memory and C: drive and all report nothing amiss.
Is there any software that I can use to detect what is running in the background and causing a constant interrupt of the CPU?
Any other suggestions?
Thanks for any help with this.