Well My NP8887 has worked perfectly for almost 8 months, but recently the fan always stays on the slow speed and I've noticed, through task manager, that the CPU is constantly working at around 50% power. I have no clue as to what could be causing this and any and all help is greatly appreciated.

XP Home
3.06 ghz, 1gb ram.

Hey there.

Sounds like the computer is overheating.
When was the last time you cleaned out the air cooling system?

Refer to the service manual.
Open the bottom of the notebook where the fans are.
Remove the heatsink and peel out the dust bunnies.
Reassemble. (You may want to redo the thermal compound)

Any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask!!

Good luck,
Denny Metcalf
dennymet@bu.edu


EDIT: I guess I should give you an explaination as to why it is underclocking itself. As the P4 gets hot, it underclocks itself so that it has less load and (hopefully) lower temperatures. Eventually it'll get to the point where your computer will just shut itself down. I've been down this road. It sucks.

Awesome, thanks. It works great now.

Go Red Sox! (I'm from Boston too.)

Open the Task Manager (you can via ctrl-alt-del), and select the Processes Tab. click on the CPU column header to sort by CPU utilization and you should see your culprit. Kill off that task if you don't need it...

I was a wee bit presumptuous with my saying that everything was working great... I cleaned out the fan, and used some new heatsink on the cpu. When I put my hand next to the fans it seems to be running much cooler, but it is still seeming like the CPU is way underclocked... Task manager still lays its taking between 50-70% of my CPU just for idling and I can't even run BF1942 on the lowest settings possible without it lagging to death on me. Is there something I have to manually switch to get the CPU back to it's regular clock speed? Or is this some other problem with my computer?? I'm really confused and annoyed, any ideas????

Did you do what dprischak suggested and find out what's using all the CPU?
Something is using it and that's the best way to id what it is.

I have before, but will post my findings. System Idle Process ---- 38-43%
System -----------------19-26%
cisvc ------------------16-22%
services.exe ------------7-11%

Those are the only major ones... I have referenced all of these and none seem suspicious...

Humm, I show System at 0 and services at 0 to 4%. I am not running a cisvc which may be your problem. I don't know what that is.

Aha, check out this: http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/23170/

I still don't know what it is but that'll tell you how to get rid of it and apparently its not needed. At least I don't think someone would tell you to can it if its needed and I don't have it running so I presume its OK. I'll check more references and post again.

OK, I sort of found out what cisvc is. Content Index Service. I haven't found out what that means, but I believe its some sort of means of indexing content of web sites. I continue to investigate.
This is fun. I am finding all sorts of useful information and web sites. Back to you later. Still have 1 hour to download Far Cry. Only 1-1/2 hours so far.

Well, looks like MarquisDarquis beat me to it.

The following is my reply to an e-mail I got directly from monkeycb. I figured that I'd post it incase anyone else might need the information. I left out certain parts that I figured didn't need to be made public.







Hey XXXXXXXX,

Wow, I'm flattered by your remarks. Thank you. I'm just a lowly college undergrad trying to get "Dr." in front of my name within the next 7 more years.

Actually, you want a HIGH cpu idleing percentage under task manager's processes. This is letting you know that you are not using up your cpu elsewhere, and that that percent is how much you are idling. I have a cpu idle of around 99 percent when I'm not doing anything.

It was pretty dirty in there wasn't it. (heatsink) I'm still curious as to what your temperature is. Have you tried running a temperature monitor? You can get a really good one here: http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-Oakland/8259/ Click on the link near the top to get the latest version of MobileMeter. It's free, and good. Don't worry about translating the page to english (yes, it's japanese). Let me know what your temperature is.

Now that you've unclogged your heatsink, is there ever a time where your fans stop spinning? Spin for a period of time, then turn off for a little while, spin again for a while, and so forth? This generally means that you are not overheating. Hopefully this is the case.

Now, a problem that happens a lot with stupid Windows operating systems is that Explorer will rob you of your cpu cycles and take all of your flops. You basically have trouble doing anything and your computer runs dirt slow like molasses in the winter. Task manager -> processes will show how much cpu time explorer is using. I think that this is because explorer is trying to keep track of where all your files are (if you have indexing on). If you have a lot of files that are fragmented, then this will happen. It sucks. Defrag often. I leave my indexing on and just defrag regularly. I like indexing on because then I can access things quicker. I'm pretty sure that this is the problem. Look at your hardware lights, does the hard disk light show activity (blinking?), because if so, then I'm certain this is the problem.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes.

Sincerely,
Denny Metcalf
dennymet@bu.edu







One last thing:

Monkeycb, when you said that you "used new heatsink on the cpu," you meant new thermal compound right? You didn't actually physically get a new heatsink right?

Assuming you changed your thermal compound, what kind of thermal compound did you use? I live my Arctic Silver, and now that 5 is out, I have hoarded up a ton of it. (I clean out my cooling system and re greased my heatsink monthly) Also, how much did you apply? Because I find that using a very thin amount works best.

Let us know about how things go.

Good luck!!

Wow. A lot of helpful information guys, thanks.
Yes, it was very dirty in there denmiscter and yeah I meant thermal compound. I used some buddy's AS5 he had.
Ok, first I dl'd the MobileMonitor and it works but does not report my CPU temperature. I believe this may have to do with ACPI not enabled or not installed on my computer.
Also I JUST disabled the cisv.exe and my fan INSTANTLY shut off and my CPU work went down to like 95%. I have no idea why cisv.exe would do all this but I'm really happy that I've finally seemingly fixed this. I'm gonna go test it out on some games and see if its really fixed. Thanks a ton!
I'll post if this really fixed everything too.

So, Denmicster, what exactly is this Content Index Service? I can't seem to find much more than a title. Does it index your files? Or what? I'd like to find out more on it. There's so much crud running that nobody ever talks about and I suspect a lot of it is simply that, crud.

I agree with you on defragging. But then I was taught by old school types. They'd have feinted at the notion of a portable computer with a GB of RAM.

Dispite only being a youngin' (18) and just a lowly college student, I'm pretty ol' fashioned myself. I believe in regular defragging, frequent reformatting, etc. etc.



The content indexing allows for windows to access files quicker. In a sense it's like windows' way of housekeeping and organizing. It's pretty much just as it sounds. It keeps an index of where everything is, and the easiest way to get there. Infortunetly there are many limitations. The biggest is that quite simply, it lacks intuition. It is a software representation of filing, which is actually more of a hareware issue. When a file is fragmented into thousands of fragments (like when you are downloading a file, and also listening to an mp3 at the same time) windows will write a "flop" of data, then read a "flop" of the song, then write a "flop" or data, and so forth. It really comes down to how the hareware utilizes it's "internal job queue" when things go to the central processing unit.

Actually, what makes more of a problem with fragments is how data is stored on a hard disk. Think of a rotating drive and a sliding arm than can access points on that disk. Now think of an array of data. If the beginning fragment is stored in the middle, then next part is in the beginning, then next part is at the end, and the last part is at the middle, the arm has to swing back and forth while the disk is constantly spinning. This is very inefficient. Now imagine a thousand fragments just to access a file (movie or something large). Access time would be horrible. The Windows Indexing service has to keep track of all of this, so as you can imagine it gets quite hectic.

Sometimes to the point where it can no longer defrag certain files because they are much too fragmented. That's when you get a file that you cannot delete. I know you've all experianced this one time or another. You go to delete something that you're downloaded and it says that it's either "in use" or "write protected." This is because the file is currently being analyzed by Windows Indexing Service, whom is despritly trying to figure out where all of the fragments are so that when you go to access, there will be no hiccups.

If you always keep this in mind, then you will understand the importance of defragging before and after you install a program, move a large file (not as crucial), or delete files. Windows is too stupid to understand that certain files should be grouped together on the hard drive. Although NTFS has made some great advances since the old days of FAT 32, or (heaven forbid) FAT 16. eeewww... I refuse to mention anything before that...

Well, it's like 1:30am and I gotta be up for class tomerrow by 6. Hope this clarified things.
Monkey, please let us know how it goes. The fact that your fan is off, and you're idling in the 90's is a very good sign. I doubt you'll experiance any more problems related to this.



Sincerely,
Denny Metcalf
dennymet@bu.edu


EDIT: Monkey, you should stick around and be an active member of this forum. Reading and posting is honestly one of my favorite things to do nowadays. Anything but study for my electromagnetism exam on monday or my combinatorics exam of friday. If only I could get college credit for posting relevant material on this forum... SIGH...

EDIT 2: Rant and rave time... I wish people would edit their posts instead of just reposting right after their initial posts. I don't like needlessly long threads or people that pride themselves with how many posts they have made. Also, why can't people bold important things in their posts? I take the time to do it... Isn't it easier to read and comprehend that way?!? Okay, I'm done. I don't feel like sleeping right now.... I need some NyQuil....

Ok, well it's been a few days and I think I can be sure of these results. It's still working great with the fan off the majority of the time instead of being on. And the CPU is usually resting at 1% usage. And BF1942 ran awesome with the graphics all the way up like it used too.
One weird thing is that when I restart, cisv.exe will turn back on, but now it's never using the CPU. Kinda weird is all.
By the way denmiscter, I think I will hang around. This seems like a very useful forum.
And I know what you mean with the exams. I have two finals next week. Ugh...

Indexing is reinitializing itself?
Yeah, I figured as much.

By disabling it, you basically reset it.
You can actually choose which folders/files you want it to index.

Let me know if you are interested.
I need sleep.
I'm going off of a 16 hour work shift (two jobs)...

Denny Metcalf
dennymet@bu.edu