CPU usage 100% while watching videos on any browsers

I did not change the video drivers.

How to find out whether it is codec problem?

It is a laptop, 2 years old..it gets heated .. but I make sure I keep some clearance as I mostly use it on table top.

I might check for the dust buildup..

But, will it solve the problem?


Thanks.

>How to find out whether it is codec problem?

Try playing the video with a different player, such as VLC http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

>But, will it solve the problem?

If your cpu or video card is getting too hot, it will slow down or stutter.  You can try monitoring the temperatures with Everest: http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

what spec is your laptop - RAM, CPU and disk space.  might be heated related too, and you will need some good disk space and memory to run them.

assuming you have the latest WMP 11 (XP or 12 (Vista), have you checked for updates to your Video card, from NVidia or ATI's site.  Or you manufacturer of your card - BFG, Sapphire etc.  Your GPU should be doing most of the work, rather than the CPU

You should also be careful with installing VLC, do not install the Firefox plugin, it has other side effects with playback.  Try K-Lite codec pack, and DivX - http://www.filehippo.com/software/multimedia/ to see if that helps.  You should also have IE7 minimum, and FF 3.5.2, with as you say, the latest Flash plug-ins via Adobe's site or Filehippo - http://www.filehippo.com/software/browsers/ - remember there are 2 types of Flash plug-in, one for IE and one for FF.

What kind of videos are you watching, short TV type episodes or long movie length?  What is their filetype - WMV, MPG, AVI, FLV (Flash), DiVX???

RAM - 2GB
CPU - Intel Dual Core 1.7 GHz
OS - Earlier it was Vista. Now Windows 7 (I formated my disc and installed Win7..Vista and Win7 both are giving problems)
Disc Space - As I formated the disc, I now have about 70 GB free out of 120 GB.

I am using IE8 and FF 3.5.
Videos i m talking about are online videos...on sites such as youtube.com. Small length and long length, all are giving trouble.

Dual core 1.7GHz should be powerful enough, though the 2GB RAM might be a sticking point, due to the demands of Vista and Win7, really depends what is running in the background of your system, with services and other apps installed/running.

before embarking on doing the software build on your laptop, you need to make sure the laptop manufacturer, supplies Win 7 drivers, or Vista drivers at the very least for your system, otherwise you are going to hit a multitude of problems with hardware not being detected, or operating correctly.  I would also advise against installed the Win 7 RC for long term use (stable as it is), unless you have access to the full release via Technet etc.  The RC will be killed off on 1st March.

you say you had the same issue with Vista, did the laptop come with Vista, or did you add that yourself?  If it came with Vista, you could try doing a restore, if they provided media to do this, and then see if there are updates from the manufacturer's site for your laptop drivers and software, plus you can add the latest service pack for Vista to see if this corrects your issue.

losing 50GB in an OS install, is a bit odd to see the least, usually Vista uses about 20GB (4 times as much as XP), i am not certain yet if Win 7 is the same, but it sounds like you may have a diagnostic or restore partition on your drive, which may use 10GB or less, but the sums don't add up.  Unless you have installed a large amount of software or games, i can't see how you could use up 50GB of space.  I hope you formatted the drive to NTFS and not FAT32.

@IainNIX

I dont know whether I have correct drivers for Win7. Can you tell me where can I search them? I have a Lenovo laptop.

The problem was there even when I had Vista. Vista was original which came along with the laptop. I restored it after I encountered the problem but to no effect. The problem continued.

I formated the drive through the option while restoring to factory settings...so I am not sure whether it was NTFS or FAT32.

I had to install Win 7 RC (free) as I had not got the Vista upgrade or installation CD when I purchased the laptop.

For now, there are no games on the HD. I have 2 major softwares Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 professional versions.

How to get the drivers for Win 7 if that solves the problem?

ok we use Lenovo laptops too.  So the Blue button action on power-on will allow you to do a factory restore which would be NTFS, and the hidden partition will account for 10GB of disk use.  Your Vista restore would have been back to the original factory build, but you could then connect the Windows Update site and get all the latest updates/service packs to bring it right up to date.  then you would have been able to see if it was a software issue or not.

Go for drivers -- not sure if they have released Win 7 ones yet, but Vista drivers will do in most cases - http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site.wss/product.do?template=%2Fproductselection%2Flandingpages%2FbrowseByProductLandingPage.vm&sitestyle=lenovo&brandind=10&validate=true

you will need your model and type to proceed further on the site, or if using IE browser, you can use the ActiveX auto-detect script.  See if you can install the SYSTEM UPDATE application, as it will then automatically try and help you install the right software on your laptop, but i suspect you need to have some Lenovo software installed, so it can compare what you have, with what's on the website.

>How to get the drivers for Win 7 if that solves the problem?

Isn't Windows 7 not yet officially released?  How do you get the manufacturer's drivers for an OS that isn't out officially yet?  Did you try Vista with the manufacturer's drivers?