NT Kernel & System using 100% of CPU

Anonymous

Hi,

I just bought a new laptop with Window Vista Basic. The laptop has 3 Gb ram. I was just reading an article on line and then I start to hear the laptop fan running like crazy. then I went to the Resource Monitor and there was an image/program that was using 95% of my cpu and it was my system with description of "NT Kernel & System". It has been going on for over 30mins. Other than restarting the computer, what can I do about this "NT Kernel & System" eating up 95% of my CPU?

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Anonymous

I've been having the same problem on my HP desktop running Vista home for a couple weeks. I read that someone fixed the same problem by updating some hardware firmware, so I opened Resource Monitor and started unplugging all my hardware one at a time. The instant I unplugged my Belkin USB network adapter, NT Kernel & System dropped down to 0% and my computer unfroze entirely. The same adapter has been causing me a lot of grief for months- it wouldn't respond every time my computer came out of standby. I'll be updating the driver and firmware to see if that helps - otherwise that garbage is going in the trash. I recommend disabling/unplugging hardware (especially if you have any with odd behavior) until the problem stops, then replacing or updating that hardware.

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Anonymous

Hello Dtsai,

Thank you for posting. What you just described seems to be some form of mal-ware trying to mascuerade as a legitimate windows service. Windows does have NT Kernel and also System, but they never show up together as one service, program, or file.

I highly recommend that you use your favorite anti-virus and anti-spyware program and do a full scan of your PC.

Please try the scan and let me know if this helps you

Zack

Microsoft Answers Support Engineer

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59 additional answers

Anonymous

2012-01-21T01:14:33+00:00
Probably something like that. I have 4 partitions available for operating systems, so I immediately put another copy of Windows 7 on one of those partitions and am using that now. Actually, everything seems to work much better

I guess that is due to all the upgrades of Adobe, Java, etc, which seem to eventually cause Windows Rot. That installation lasted me exactly two years. But when something is trying to use my System process (NT Kernel), I know that's bad.
I don't know if it is malware.

I believe a recent update to something we both have in our comps is causing this, because my timeline is almost the same as your as to when things started happening and also WHAT start happening.

I did a full system wipe, and proceeded to let windows re-update itself completely... well the problem is back already.

Either a windows update is causing the issue, or an update to a driver for hardware we both share, or we both have the exact same hardware defect at the act same time. <Not very likely on the last one.
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Anonymous

2012-01-06T12:57:18+00:00

Probably something like that. I have 4 partitions available for operating systems, so I immediately put another copy of Windows 7 on one of those partitions and am using that now. Actually, everything seems to work much better - I guess that is due to all the upgrades of Adobe, Java, etc, which seem to eventually cause Windows Rot. That installation lasted me exactly two years. But when something is trying to use my System process (NT Kernel), I know that's bad.
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Anonymous

2012-01-06T10:15:54+00:00

so problem occurs when on internet .....NETBOT perhaps?
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