CPU Usage Spikes While Typing Message (Outlook 2003)

[Mikey]

Whenever I type a new message (or reply to a message) there is an intolerable
lag between what I type and what is displayed on the screen. If I quickly
type 20-30 characters and stop, the characters don't show up on the screen
for 15-20 seconds. Using Process Explorer to monitor Outlook revealed that
OUTLOOK.EXE was consuming 50% of a 3GHz HT CPU.

My Outlook is setup with 2 profiles, each connecting to a separate POP3
email account.

I have been researching this and working on it for a week and have tried the
following with only temporary success:

Update graphics card driver to latest release (nVidia ForceWare 93.71)
Ran Help > Detect and Repair...
Ran ScanPST on Profile1.pst, Profile1_archive.pst, Profile2.pst,
Profile2_archive.pst
Deleted Profile1.srs, Profile2.srs, Outcmd.dat, Extend.dat
Disabled all Add-ins and COM Add-ins
Disabled all anti-virus (BitDefender) and anti-spyware (SpySweeper) software
Ran Outlook in safe mode

HijackThis doesn't show anything that I don't recognize. Windows XP
Professional and Office 2003 are up to date with all SPs and patches. As you
can imagine, I am becoming quite frustrated. Any help on this would be
greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
Mike

My system:
Intel D945PVS mobo
Intel P4 630 processor
Corsair XMS2 1GB DDR2 memory
XFX GeForce 6600 256MB DDR2 graphics card
Seagate Barracuda 7200 160GB SATA disk drive

 

[christopher_brake]

Whenever I type a new message (or reply to a message) there is an intolerable
lag between what I type and what is displayed on the screen. If I quickly
type 20-30 characters and stop, the characters don't show up on the screen
for 15-20 seconds. Using Process Explorer to monitor Outlook revealed that
OUTLOOK.EXE was consuming 50% of a 3GHz HT CPU.

My Outlook is setup with 2 profiles, each connecting to a separate POP3
email account.

I have been researching this and working on it for a week and have tried the
following with only temporary success:

Update graphics card driver to latest release (nVidia ForceWare 93.71)
Ran Help > Detect and Repair...
Ran ScanPST on Profile1.pst, Profile1_archive.pst, Profile2.pst,
Profile2_archive.pst
Deleted Profile1.srs, Profile2.srs, Outcmd.dat, Extend.dat
Disabled all Add-ins and COM Add-ins
Disabled all anti-virus (BitDefender) and anti-spyware (SpySweeper) software
Ran Outlook in safe mode

HijackThis doesn't show anything that I don't recognize. Windows XP
Professional and Office 2003 are up to date with all SPs and patches. As you
can imagine, I am becoming quite frustrated. Any help on this would be
greatly appreciated.

Best regards,
Mike

My system:
Intel D945PVS mobo
Intel P4 630 processor
Corsair XMS2 1GB DDR2 memory
XFX GeForce 6600 256MB DDR2 graphics card
Seagate Barracuda 7200 160GB SATA disk drive

Mike - I have exactly the same problem with Outlook 2003 on my Windows
XP machine. Watching the performance monitor with Outlook open (but
not doing anything) I see a spike in CPU usage up to c. 50% every 10
seconds or so. Afraid I can't offer a solution - but wanted to let you
know it's not an isolated problem.

If you find any solution can you let me know as well?

Thanks

Chris

 

[mattmatt32]

I have the same problem, but my cpu usage goes up to 99% while typing
a reply. Changing the format of the email from HTML to plain text
eliminates the problem, but I still haven't found out why.

 

[Mikey]

Thanks, that's good to know. I have discovered that changing the format to
Rich Text also eliminates the problem. At least we know the problem is
related to HTML. I am not going to give up on this because I prefer HTML, but
at least we have a decent work-around using rich text (or plain text).

One other piece of the puzzle ... occasionally (maybe 1st time after a
reboot?), one of my profiles works fine in HTML. But if I shutdown Outlook
and restart it, it is hosed again. This is not true with the other profile,
it is always hosed. Doesn't make sense to me!!!

 

[Mikey]

Our problems are different. I only see the CPU usage spike when I am actually
typing a message. And as I discovered today, only when the email format if
HTML. Outlook consumes 0% CPU when it is idle. I have seen threads in this
forum about the problem you are experiencing. I can't remember if there was a
resolution, but most (all?) experiencing the problem had Dell computers.

 

[ChrisB]

Mike,

Oddly enough, I do indeed have a Dell. Can you remember where you saw the
thread / if there were any solutions - 'cause I have been looking for a
couple of weeks and am really having trouble tracking anything down?

Thanks

Chris

 

[Mikey]

Eureka !!! Since I only had the Outlook performance problem while creating
messages in HTML format, I began researching performance issues with IE7. I
ran across a solution to an IE7 issue I was having related to maintaining
sites in the Restricted Zone. What I ended up doing was uninstalling the
PowerTweaks for IE5 and reinstalling IE7. Maybe the PT for IE5 had nothing to
do with my Outlook performance problem and a simple reinstall of IE7 would
have done the trick, but I feel like I've got a new computer!! Thought I
would pass this along.

 

[Mikey]

Look at the last post in thread "Outlook 2007 Hangs computer with 100% cpu
usage" in this forum (Outlook General Questions - microsoft.public.outlook
general).