Advice needed - cpu goes up and down after crash

Hi all, this has nothing to do with Reaper, but as many Reaperites are such experts, maybe I can get some help. My PC crashed during startup due to a f***ing bad electricity in the house. As a result my XP-config was gone, and I got it back with BARTPE and some clever help from someone who told me to replace some files with files from the last windows recovery points. Everything is fine, no data lost. Only problem: I get strange cpu spikes, for example in an empty Reaper song from 1.4%cpu to 6,3 to 9,4 and back, constantly, then 10,9 and so on, always changing. Generally cpu hit seems a bit higher than before the crash. I just wanted to know if anyone knows what could have went wrong, and if there is anything I could do. Otherwise I'd just live with it :). A friend told me to just write my last snapshot drive image back, for some reason in his case it helped. But well, maybe there are other ideas? Would be much appreciated, and anyway I'm curious what this could be.

Okay, I guess the information provided (and I have none else :) ) makes it impossible to say anything to it. Problem is that songs that ran perfectly wel on my humble AMD AthlonXP300+ up to now, but took the machine to its limits, don't run well now. Time to render, I think :D. Anyway, thanks for reading anyways.

It sounds like there is still something missing / "unconfigured" in your XP setup. I think that you'll need to restore your last backup image. (A System Restore might do it). Whichever method you go for, I suggest that you back up all your Reaper stuff, and anything else vital, to an external drive (borrow one if you need to) before you do anything. Just in case. Good luck :)

- I had a situation where CPU usage in an idling project inexplicably bounced up and down - resetting Reaper to factory defaults took care of that. (Not related to a crash though) - Did you check if CPU usage behaves the same with other programs (preferably one that causes some load) or only with Reaper? - Run CPUz () if your CPU clock rate is constant (if not, SpeedStep/power saving may have kicked in)

Thanks much for the answers, much appreciated! I hope to avoid a fresh install, DarkStar, and sadly enough a external usb drive with an image crashed just 3 weeks ago :(. But maybe some restore point will do it. I didn't find other not working things besides the mentioned cpu ups and downs until now.) And I had no clue such a cpuz existed, great! (writing while testing, he he) - I was sure I had tested in Orion too, but well, there is no cpu-ups downs reported from Orion in 3 songs I just opened, so I have plenty of options now, thanks again, Steindork and DarkStar! Off to find the problem...This is simply a superb forum... edit: restoring the last available system and setting Reaper to default settings didn't solve the problem. Well, for now I'll try to get on with the system like it is, again slightly cursing that I own c/r software :D. For example, IK Multimedia just allows 4 re-activations, that's not much if you run a PC at home and a laptop 2 months a year abroad... Seems there is, like DarkStar already guessed, something wrong. Only thing I found up to now is that the software deinstallation of XP only shows entries from M to Z, and by far not all of them. Bit of bad luck to get a short circuit exactly the seconds after you booted.... Anyway, with an AMD AthlonXP3000+ you're accustomed to rendering your stuff, and if the only problem will be that I have to render a bit earlier, I'll live with it. Thanks again :)

Klemp...Here's my take on it... Anytime I have a crash I always restore with a complete format... Configuring your system with a crash in mind... I always have at least 2 HDD in a system The first one holds windows and programs, nothing else. The next x number of drives hold all my data that I cannot loose. So when my system crashes, because it will sooner or later, I simply format drive C and install a fresh copy of windows. The other HDD are not effected, they remain with all my data intact. You should, in this scenario have the data HDD doubled in case one dies. Plus backup your files and remove them from the building. They should be placed somewhere off site. What if, god forbid, your house burns down...You've lost all your work as well. Perhaps for a home user this is not as required, but for us at AcmeBarGig, this is the backup strategy we employ. Usually every 2 days or so...We also swap HDD as well. Anyways its a little off topic, but hopefully helpful nonetheless.. KM

Thanks much (and by the way, I just, a tad late, discovered your plugins, great :D). I do it a bit like that, just with an external HDD, and some data like programs and so on on a different partition on my PC-HDD. In fact my c drive is so small, I once nearly ran into problems after a sp3 install^^. My bad is that I lost a snapshot drive image, due to a external HDD not working any more :(. I'd of course do it like you suggested, just that with a complete re-formatting and new install of XP i would lose my c/r-activations... I always backup my data, I'm a bit of a maniac in that since - really - the attic beside our flat burnt down last year... Without those bl**** c/r plugins I'd straight away reformat, re-install XP, and afterwards would make a snapshot drive image of my great working machine... thanks all for the answers!

Thanks Klemp we are planning a major release week. coming soon. We have a new amp coming out called Cyan, we have DIG 2.5, the upgraded Cab Enhancer version 1.09, RedShift overdrive, Jetson Delay, and maybe even Oxide Visual Filters...So hopefully all that will be ready this week, and we'll release them daily!