Analyze startup CPU usage?

Hello BBS; I'm xCurt and don't understand much when it comes to IT, but will like to know what is going on inside my new PC, XP Home.dk

I have placed tasklist.exe in System32
- and this is my first post here

I cannot figure out how to perform this act at PC startup when the CPU usage is 99% for several minutes and there is no way (that I know of) to read the quoted instruction, open Run, type cmd, and copy and paste the command. Are there any tricks or third party apps that will automate this procedure during startup, or auto-perform similar action? It is not enough knowing that it may be svchost running; the sinner must be named.

I know what is starting on my PC, but not what is eating the CPU at the end of the startup. It is not Microsoft Autoupdate, my station is fully updated. I have no vira or any unwanted files or leftovers, and the actual problem is most likely just due to ERUNT Autobackup being placed in Start. But I will like to know for sure what is going on, so how do I watch, record, analyze the startup CPU usage?

(I now realize tasklist.exe will not do it on its own.)

 

Hello xCurt and welcome to the Board

What are you using to indicate CPU usage?

I'm assuming its TM, and if so, what does the Process tab list tell you about RAM usage?

Tasklist's usefullness, aside from giving you the list in .txt form, is the ability to look inside of svchost instances and tying all the processes back to TM via the PID #'s.

Keep in mind that processes first starting up will spike the CPU usage - you can see that when opening TM itself.

CPU usage is only interesting if it lasts longer than that momentary spike - that's an indicator of a problem app or system process.

Regards - Charles

 

Well, if you suspect Erunt, why not try taking it out of startup just to see. If it makes a difference, you could schedule it to run at some other time in the day. I leave my computer on 24/7 and schedule it to run at night. To do this, look in the folder where Erunt is installed. You'll see a file named Autobak.exe. It's a command line tool that you use to run automated backups with Erunt. Make a batch file with the proper command in it, save it in Erunts folder and then use scheduled tasks to schedule the batch file to run whenever you want it to.

The readme in Erunt's folder explains the proper syntax necessary for various types of backups from the command line. For details on autobak.exe, look at the section titled "The AUTOBACK.EXE tool ". This is what the batch file I use looks like.

The E:\Erdnt tells it where to save the backups. The #DATE# tells it to name the file whatever today's date is. The CURUSER tells it to back up the current user's registry and the OTHERUSERS tells it to back up all other users registries. You can leave OTHERUSERS in there or take it out. Up to you. The days:9 tells it to save 9 days worth of registry backups. You can put whatever number in it you choose. Autobak.exe automatically deletes any copies older than the number of days you specify. You must use the #DATE# parameter in the name for this to work though.

Copy and paste the command into notepad and save it as autobak.bat. You can name it whatever you want but it has to have the .bat extension. This is the file you'd want to use task scheduler to run.

As for getting the tasklist command to run at startup, make a batch file with the line in it and use scheduled tasks to schedule it to run at startup. To make a batch file, open notepad and copy and paste the tasklist command into it and then save it as tasklist.bat. Then schedule that file to run at startup.

I don't know if it'll tell you much about cpu usage or not though.

 

Hi Zander,

No - what it looks like http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=63126 Post#4

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks to charlesvar and Zander for taking the time to answer me.

I can get used to some app taking up all CPU for a few minutes at each PC upstart, but I will not accept not to KNOW which app it is and why. So please forgive me for not making my first post clear about this, but the problem to me is not IF any app is taking up the CPU, but WHICH and WHY.

For this reason I have now tried to use SysInternals Process Monitor > "Enable Boot Logging ", but something went very wrong. At next upstart XP would freeze at login - not my login, but XP login / start / loading - whats the name - until I finally had to unplug the station. I tried twice, and gave up this option. But of course I followed the advice to move ERUNT away from Start, and the CPU eating problem was gone. So the sinner IS named, and thats what half of all this was about.

Now I just need to talk to the guys from SysInternals about this failed boot logging, but they are no longer their own masters - Process Monitor and Process Explorer are now from Microsoft - so I am not too sure if I can expect to get an answer.

Again, thanks for taking the time to answer me!

 

Hi xCurt and thanks for posting back

Sysinternals's forum still there:

http://forum.sysinternals.com/default.asp

Regards - Charles

 

No, "Sorry, new registrations are currently suspended."

 

Thanks for the info - sorry to hear that, didn't relaize they did that.

There are posts no more than a week old, that's why didn't think to check.

The check back later does imply that it will be open for new registrations later - at least I hope so.

Regards - Charles

 

Most likely at Microsoft's, as SysInternals' apps officially are their products now, I guess.