How can I get more info on high-CPU rundll32.exe process?

Posted by Herb Caudill on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Herb Caudill
Published on 2009-11-09T14:30:27Z Indexed on 2010/05/03 2:58 UTC
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Filed under:

windows-7

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cpu

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usage

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rundll32.exe

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process

I recently clean-installed Win7 on my HP8530. Everything works well most of the time, but for the last few days, every morning after my computer has been idle overnight, I find that rundll32.exe is consuming a steady 50% of CPU (i.e. all of one processor). The only way I can make it go away is by restarting.

Process Explorer has no information on what the process is running. If I try to do anything to rundll32.exe (kill process, suspend, etc.) I get "Error opening process: Access is denied." None of the tabs in the ProcExp properties dialog has any information at all.

I have Norton Internet Security running with the latest definitions; I've run a full system scan and it gives me a clean bill of health.

How can I get more information on why this process is running?

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