Processor constantly running at max

[ríomhaire]

As I mentioned previously, my PC is on the way out, but as I'm currently not sure how to go about getting the money together for a new one I figure I should try to make this one last as long as possible and the CPU being at 100% all the time probably doesn't help. Well, not all the time but for more time than I think it should. For some reason it's after calming down now but a it was staying at very near 100% for a good few minutes there and I have no idea why. It's quiet obvious when it's doing this as it gets very loud. I opened up resource manager and while my CPU was going mental apparently just under 50% of it was being taken up by svchost.exe and a similar amount in services by gpsvc. I knew svchost could be a memory hog but I didn't know it'd blitz my CPU too.

I don't know much about the technical side of computers but should these spikes concern me? Are they going to wear away my PC faster than it's already going? (It's after getting pretty warm now) If so is there any way to prevent this? Thanks in advance.

 

[No Limit]

Hmm...usually when svchost is wigging out there is a virus embedded in it (not always but its common). Have you had any other issues such as sites not loading or seeing popups where there shouldn't be popups? Do you have virus protection?

Process explorer lets you take a deeper look in to what might be running under svchost:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653

See if you see the exact file causing the problem with it.

I'm not sure what gpsvc is, a quick google search says it has something to do with group policy which should not be causing any CPU lag, if it is I would find that very suspicious.