Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

chkntfs.exe uses 100% of cpu

by dreyescairo Aug 7, 2007 4:33AM PDT

Whenever I start up my laptop I get a few moments before my computer begins to slow down significantly. My Sprint Broadband connection stops working and I can't get anything to work at normal speed. When I check the computer processes in Task Manager, I see that chkntfs.exe is running and has hogged between 90 and 100% of my CPU capacity. When I turn off the process, things generally go back to normal. Sometimes one of my svchost (system) iterations also begins to use large amounts of the CPU after I shut down chkntfs. Why is this process working this way, and how can I get it to run normally? I've run antivirus scans and adware scans and they don't help. I've had this machine over 2 years now and never had this problem before.

XP Home, SP2
E-machines laptop, AMD Athlon XP-M 2500+ 519 mhz, 512 mb of RAM
Active Virus Shield (AOL/Kaspersky)
Adaware Free Version
Spyware Blaster

Discussion is locked

9 Posts
- Collapse + Expand Details
- Collapse -
I've seen this when...
by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Aug 7, 2007 4:56AM PDT
- Collapse -
Must be something else...
by dreyescairo Aug 7, 2007 9:32AM PDT

Thanks for your help. I tried the manual solution by running regedit but to no avail. After reboot I still had chkntfs running at above 90 percent of CPU load. Before I tried this I checked the device manager and everything was running in Ultra DMA mode, but I figured I'd try anyway. Haven't found any drives running in PIO. Any other suggestions?

- Collapse -
Ok, any "extra" chkntfs.exe's ?
by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Aug 7, 2007 11:37AM PDT
- Collapse -
Tried that one earlier
by dreyescairo Aug 7, 2007 11:53AM PDT

As far as I can tell I don?t have any extra instances of chkntfs running or existing on my drives. I?d read that thread when I was doing my initial research on the issue. I also read somewhere that there is a malware program that uses a bogus version of the file name with some kind of hidden character to make the user think it?s a legit program. Any knowledge of how that might work or how to detect it?

- Collapse -
dreyescairo
by tomron Aug 7, 2007 11:46AM PDT
- Collapse -
chkdsk /f
by dreyescairo Aug 7, 2007 11:59AM PDT

I get this message:

The type of the file system is NTFS.
Cannot lock the current drive.

Chkdisk cannot run because the volume is in use by another process. Would you like to schedule this volume to be checked the next time the system restarts? (Y/N)


What do you think?

- Collapse -
OK
by tomron Aug 7, 2007 12:09PM PDT
- Collapse -
No dice...
by dreyescairo Aug 8, 2007 5:20PM PDT

I've tried it, nothing seems to work so far. Is there a way to disable chkntfs.exe so it doesn't run on its own?

- Collapse -
OK
by tomron Aug 8, 2007 6:23PM PDT

Since your other scans found nothing doesn't mean that there is nothing there.

Check this link Infected With Chkntfs.exe.

You need to run hijack this but cnet doesn't analyze logs,this LINK has instructions.

Tom

Back to Windows Legacy OS forum

CNET Forums

Operating Systems
Software
Electronics & Gadgets
Hardware
Tablets & Mobile Devices
General Help
Brand Forums
Roadshow Autos
Off Topic

Other Forums

Forum Info