Windows 7 RUNDLL32.EXE pins my CPU @ 100% when trying to play games

[Grapeman]

I am somewhat baffled by this.....

Whenever I try to play a game on my Win 7 laptop (older Toshiba Tecra S3, 1.86Ghz, nvidia Go6600, 1 Gig RAM) I see the screen flicker and then nothing happens. I open up the Task Manager and see that the rundll32.exe is pinned @ 100% (or close to) and nothing is happening. I kill the process, and all is well in the world again. Granted I am trying to play older games and have not experienced this with any other apps.

I have tried full re-installs of the games (with patches) and still to no avail. Is this a possible compatability issue? Should I invest in a newer laptop that supports virtualization and rin Win XP as a Virtual Machine and go that way? Any help will be appreciated.

- Grapeman.

 

[Elan Redding]

Hi there.
I have had the same problem as you for some time now. But i have now found a solution to it!:

1.open the game normally...
2.kill just the game in task manger(not RunDll32)
3.leave rundll32 running and re-open the game but this time open the game as administrator....
4.the game will open but rundll32 will still take up heaps of CPU. so once in the game Alt-Tab it out, and kill rundll32,there for leaving your computer with normal CPU and the game to run normal again.
hope this helps. with regards.....