TeaTimer Behaviour - Sudden High CPU

[Hippogriff]

I have been using Spybot S&D for some time, along with TeaTimer resident. So this is not a new thing for me, but today my computer started getting really slow and I knew something was up.

I opened up Process Explorer and saw that my PC was running at 100% CPU. I had a look for any obviously offending process, but the only thing running up at between 80% and 98% was something called Interrupts.

Obviously that is not something you can terminate or get rid of.

I opened up FileMon and started a trace, wondering if any process was rapidly accessing the file system and I found the culprit straight away - TeaTimer.exe was accessing files constantly... often the path was just "C:" which I found a bit strange.

Anyway, I terminated TeaTimer.exe and the CPU usage dropped right back down. I then thought I would restart it - straight back up to 100%. So now I'm not using it.

I have done a Spybot S&D update... same situation exists - TeaTimer.exe causes 100% usage. I've not tried a reboot yet - I suspect that will fix it, but for how long?

Anyone got any insight into why this might have just happened? Is TeaTimer.exe fighting some particularly virulent infection that is not obvious to me? Has it suddenly gone FUBAR?

At the time of the CPU usage heading to 100% I wasn't browsing the 'net or anything, I was actually in Microsoft Excel.

Any guidance appreciated.

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

When the computer is running for a long time without a standby, reboot, or shutdown memory consumption of a (refers to any) can slightly increase.

It's taking that much because TeaTimer is a Resident Shield that actively protects you from malware. I would suggest you reboot and see how it goes. Usually TeaTimer will take up 35-50MB of RAM. Seeing that modern PCs built today have more RAM and resources, 80MB should be nothing.

If this does not help you can disable TeaTimer as follows:
- Go into Spybot - Mode - Advanced Mode - Tools - Resident.
- Uncheck the following: Resident "TeaTimer" (Protection of over-all system settings) Active.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[Hippogriff]

Er... sure. Is that intended to be helpful, tho'? Or is Sandra actually a 'bot scanning threads for key identifiers and writing automated posts?

Anyway, I didn't mention anything about a "slight increase in RAM consumption" I was talking about a sudden and catastrophic increase in CPU utilisation that made the computer unusable.

I have, indeed, disabled TeaTimer. Though I don't count that as any kind of resolution or understanding.

[spybotsandra]

Hello,

You wrote that you have not yet started your pc new.
No need to insult anybody.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

[Hippogriff]

I thought that you were an automated response 'bot, not a real person!!!

How embarrassing.

I couldn't figure out how else your reply could be so far from being even slightly relevant.

[Hippogriff]

Hello,

You wrote that you have not yet started your pc new.
No need to insult anybody.

Best regards
Sandra
Team Spybot

P.S. - it was not an insult; I genuinely didn't think you were a person. I thought it was some automated routine pasting irrelevant information into a thread. Like many systems do... Banks, for example, scan emails for key words and then they provide a stock response... always the same result, tho', pretty useless to the person asking the question.

[Les1953]

I dont know why, but when I deleted my torrent downloads in
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\BitTorrent
the tea Timer stopped hogging the CPU and the Tea Timer usage dropped from 50-70% down usage to 1 to 14%usage.
Bittorrent was not in use and all torrents had been cleared in the program.
I have noticed that when all torrents are paused there is a small amount of internet leakage.
Maybe Tea Timer is looking at the old files linked to bittorrent?.
Regards
Les