BleepingComputer.com: New Windows 7 64-bit PC running slow

I just purchased a new Compaq PC last week and am running Windows 7 64-bit. It has worked like a charm until this morning. Last night, I set up Windows Media Center to run through my xBox 360. This seemed to work OK and I was listening to music through my surround sound. Then, I got brave and tried out something I had heard about. I went to www.katz.cd and downloaded an episode of House through RapidShare. I've never done this previously and am assuming I did it correctly, though I'm really not sure. The file downloaded and I tried to view it through Media Center on my TV and it was saying that the file was not present, but that Media Center was still locating files. I figured this was probably a long process as I have many music and picture files on my PC. So, I went to bed and when I got up this morning, the xBox 360 had shut down and my PC was still on and not in hibernation (which it normally does). I've tried rebooting, restoring, ran a full system scan using both Norton and Malwarebytes, but none seemed to help. The PC is running slow and I can see that something is using heavy CPU, but can't identify it.

Please let me know if anyone can help.

Thank You,
Daren

This post has been edited by bensond: 05 November 2009 - 04:05 PM

If you can't see what is chewing up resources in Task Manager (I assume you didn't forget to hit the box at the bottom of the Processes tab that says "Show processes from all users") I suggest you perform a System Restore to a point where it was working well and research what may have happened WMC and XBOX etc. before trying it again.

I actually did initially miss the "Show processes from all users" button, but have since recognized it (I'm new to Win 7 and am coming direct from XP). I've identified the offending process to be wmpnetwk.exe. It sucks up massive amounts of CPU and Memory. It seems to be a system bug involved in the sharing of data between the PC and other network file sharing devices (e.g. xBox 360). At this point, it doesn't matter if I have the xBox on or off, so the bug seems to have been triggered when I setup Windows Media Center. I've been searching for a permanent solution, but so far the only action I can come up with is to keep ending the wmpnetwk.exe process.

Daren,
These two sites may help even if the problem is a little dated:
http://forums.cnet.com/5208-6142_102-0.html?threadID=226185
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...e-they-running/
Paul