re: System Idle Process taking 95% of CPU
Monday, November 25, 2002 at 9:46 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by C K
(6910 messages posted)
Hi.. It's been a very active thread to say the least. I have found some very interesting
things on some boards/systems but got stalled due too work etc. First, when your
CPU is showing 75% load, what does your system idle process show? If a constant
of 75% cpu load, the systems idle process should be around 25% or so. If it is higher
by 5% or more for example, then you have some hardware or software issues going on
or an overlaoded system that may be weak on resources. Take a look at all of the
processes to see what they show. Is the system idle process low and the CPU load
high? If this is the case, the process hogging the CPU time is the culprit. If
you haven't already, check out blkviper.com for a look at what services you may be
able to shut down to reduce the load. Then check which applications are running
and try shutting down the ones that are using a higher percentage of CPU time and
see if that helps. There have been reports of some errors in XP/2000 where the load
and idle process are being incorrectly reported but it seems to effect the same type
of board in differant ways. That makes no sense unless we take into consideration
processor differences and other hardware/software issues but no one can say for sure
right now. What chipset does your MB have on it?? There are some chipset issues
going on as I speak. So far I have found that I have to check the system idle process
as soon as XP is installed. That way, no other software will cause conflicts and
I can see immediately if there is a hardware/OP system problem. So far I have seen
it mostly on AMD systems with certian chipsets, but not all chipset/MB/processor
combos. Some of the newer boards require BIOS updates and some need them but they
haven't been released yet or they may have some design problems. Wouldn't be the
first time. I also noticed that you have only 128 meg of RAM. This is actually
low enough to cause problems of a high amount of disk read/writes to the drive and
has nothing to do with how big/small your VM is or if it is defragged (the system
is actually getting choked). You very well might see a large improvement by adding
at least another 128 meg of RAM if you can afford it. MS really should have told
people that 256 was the recommended minimum. As I have stated previously, I have
found the old BX chipsets doing better than the new ones unfortunately on the compatibilty
issues and stability.. Post the model of your MB and I will check it out.. C K
On Monday, November 25, 2002 at 12:10 pm, Wim Kotze wrote:
>hello CK,
>
>I'm sending you my specs. I'd be very thankful if you can check it out - good luck
>with your research anyway.
>
>I am using an LG with AMD Duron processor (1 GHz) with 128Mb RAM on XP. I am experiencing
>a classic System Idle process slowdown, as described by other users on this forum
>(around 75% idling, 95-100% when opening a new page or folder in explorer or iexplore.exe).
>I installed XP upon purchase, the disk is not fragmented, and to the best of my
knowledge
>virus free. I played around with paging options, "best performance" options etc
but
>to no avail. I've had my pc since February. Allthough I'm pretty sure this pc has
>never been quick (my similar spec pc at work is only using 4% CPU on idling, with
>loads of open applications!) I am not certain how much the problem has actually
gotten
>worse, if it has.
>
>Do you think this is hardware? Any ideas?
>
>regards
>
>Wim
>
>
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