100% cpu usage alert & too many applications running

[enigma]

I have an XP operating system (service pack 2) and earlier today , a little green box popped up to tell me that I was at 100% cpu usage. I came offline and on checking windows task manager , I noticed that I had about 40 applications running. One in particular was Lsass.exe which I believed to be related to the sasserworm virus but Blueyonder tech. support helpdesk have assured me that it is exremely unlikely that I would have picked up any virus or worm threats becasue I had the updated PC guard and was patched through the service pack 2. So my question is , if I am so well protected , then why is my system running slowly , periodically scrambling pages (ie bits of 'this page can not be displayed' in the corner when I am on AB) running so many applications and disabling my anti virus at times ? I suspect that something is not quite right but my tech support desk say that nothing could possibly get through.

I did have quite a few security packages running such as ewido , Norton anti virus , spybot search and destroy , spyware doctor etc but I removed them all earlier under the instruction of the tech team as they said that I shouldn't have had them all installed as it would 'blue screen' and that the PC guard was enough as it is the latest edition - I had just PC guard before and lost everything.

Can anyone please help ? I lost one PC months ago to a virus eating through everything and I only got this system a few months ago. Thanks x

[gavinbecky]

If you go here:

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspr o/processlibrary/

You can check all of your running processes.

Then suggest you download this:

http://www.intermute.com/spysubtract/cwshredde r_download.html

Then this:

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download3155.html

Read about Hijack this carefully before you attempt to delete anything. Major geeks are pretty good for advising you.

Then defrag your pc. A freeware package is available:

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/OS-Enhance ments/FAST-Defrag-FREEWARE.shtml

Ps - Nothing wrong with Spybot or Spyware doctor. The latter is an award winning software utility. What you were told is complete rubbish.

Using all of this should speed things up. Failing that add more memory!

[alex98uk]

In response to the pages not being displayed, make sure that you don't have conflicting firewalls. You should only have one running at a time otherwise they can fight against each other for control over the data entering or leaving your computer. A common mistake is people install a 3rd party firewall but then don't deactivate Windows Firewall.

If you still have problems visit: www.windowsbbs.com

[Ethel]

If I leave answerbank running for many hours, I find it bloats and uses up all my cpu.

Closing the browser and restarting it solves it - and it only takes a few seconds.

Could your problem be as simple as this?

[enigma]

Thank you all so very much for your detailed and informative answers. They are all very useful and your help is much appreciated. Things have been hectic for me and I haven't had time to actually put your links to good use yet but I certainly will do right now.

ZebUK - I did go in to task manager but I had over 40 processes running - a lot of which looked suspect and according to a google search , many of them were associated with trojan/malicious spyware. I was running at 100% cpu usage which is worrying because I was offline and I have never been anywhere near that in the past. I don't think it can be down to how long I have my pc running though Ethel because as I say , even when I have very little running , I am still at 100 %. I'm going to try to rectify the problem now though - I just wanted to pop in to thank everyone for their help.

Thanks again everyone x