100% CPU Usage

only when windowblinds running

Published on December 22, 2004 By NetBadger In WindowBlinds

I just bought a friend of mine the full ObjectDesktop package as a Christmas present. She is running an T1150 e-machine with a 1.3GHz Celeron CPU and 384 Megs of RAM. As soon as she loads WindowBlinds the CPU usage goes to 100%. The task manager shows Explorer.exe as the program using all the CPU. It is running Windows XP Pro, with service pack 1. Is there some compatibility issue with e-machines, or something she can turn off to be able to use WindowBlinds?

Thanks,
NetBadger

Comments

yrag

on Dec 22, 2004

WB is the only Stardock app running?

NetBadger

on Dec 23, 2004

Yep. As soon as she starts it, the usage goes to 100%, and as soon as she closes WB, the usage goes back down to 2% to 3%. I steered her away from CPU intensive OD apps like Windows FX. I'm just surprised that WB is slamming her CPU like that. I read about several people have problems with a single skin, so I got her to try about 5 different skins (all that were very small in K size), and the result was always the same.

Any Thoughts?

dan.wright

on Dec 23, 2004

1. Rebooted after install or since the problem started?
2. What skin(s) are you trying to load?
3. Have you disabled the themes service (not that this should affect it at all, just throwing things out there)?
4. What else is running on the machine (list if possible), just to see if there is something that sticks out as possibly causing a conflict?

Sorry for all the questions, just tyring to narrow it down possibly.

WebGizmos

on Dec 23, 2004

With my WB running plus CursorXP & ObjectDock & the other 50 processes running my CPU is between 2% & 17%.

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

NetBadger

on Dec 26, 2004

I'm going to turn over the thread to the person I bought the Object Desktop subscription for. She is the one who will have to test and report on results to your post. I think here handle here is "CatLover".

LillithB65

on Jan 16, 2005

I have the same problem and it's only been since I updated to WB 4.9. Can anybody help?

Sleeping Dragon

on Jan 16, 2005

updates are always a crapshoot for me.

LillithB65

on Jan 16, 2005

I can load skins just fine through the appearance tab, but if I try to open the WB configuration window that's when it uses 100% of CPU resources. Like I said this started with 4.49, don't know what the problem is...

yrag

on Jan 16, 2005

Is it searching for something when you start WB config or does it load correctly? Look in Taskmgr and see what .exe is eating the CPU cycles while the config is running.....

Flannelmeister

on Jan 16, 2005

on my 2.4 Gz Athlon powered laptop I have 12% CPU usage with DesktopX, Windowblinds, ICQ and 2 windows of Firefox open so something definitely ain't right with your machine!

I see above that your PC is running XP service pack 1, have you thought of doing the upgrade to service pack 2? I don't know if that will solve it but it is worth a try, you should do it for the security updates in any case.

Chris TH

on Jan 16, 2005

Also, what graphics card has it got? I understand that if there's lots of alphablending in he skins and the graphics card can't do it then it gets handed to the CPU to do hence making it work *much* harder.

Corky_O

on Jan 16, 2005

My (2.5 Ghz P4 / 400 Mhz Bus) machine running XP Pro, SP2 and WBlinds 4.49 shows the following in task manager processes after a WindowBlind and WB Config is loaded:

wbload.exe = memory usage: 1,644 KB
wbconfig.exe = memory usage: 5,500 KB

CPU usage = 2% with cursor stopped, 5% - 7% with cursor in motion.

Also includes ObjectDock loaded with 2 tabbed docks, 1 normal dock, and 3 widgets loaded.

No isssues with onboard graphics 64 MB(previously used), or the Radeon 9200 128 MB PCI card (currently in use).

I would check the above mentioned .exe's in Task Manager>Processes under "Memory Usage". If the values are similar to what I have listed above, I would suspect something else is causing the issue.

To the best of my knowledge (intermediate level), .exe's will show high CPU usage when loaded into memory, then should settle down to normal usage.

Sorry if all this is obvious and you have already thought of it.

CerebroJD

on Jan 17, 2005

Do you have StardockCentral open? Its been known to start consuming cpu, taking it all the way to 100%...

_02

on Jan 18, 2005

I do not believe it is a eMachines problem. I have one with 2.60Ghz and 256 ram. I dont have 100% cpu unless I have alot of animation programs running. It could be the celeron. I have Pentium4

Bulletcatcher

on Jan 19, 2005

yeah, i had an emachine for some time it was a 1.2gig & 384Mb memory but it had no problems at all with windowblinds.. of course that was with an older version of WB; but it had the integrated video so it would slow down a bit if i had too much graphic stuff going on to 100% cpu sometimes... definately weird, wish i knew what it was

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