re: System Idle Process taking 95% of CPU
Friday, July 4, 2003 at 9:15 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by chris
(1 messages posted)
I've seen questions asked such as, why is my system idle process under Windows Task
Manager at 99% when I'm doing nothing with the system?" or Because it's at such high
percentage, isn't this slowing my system down?
Well, that's quite normal. This is a HLT command that Windows 2000 or Windows XP
will send when the system is at idle. This feature is basically the same thing that
occurs when you use CPUIdle (CPU Cooling Software). This process is activated when
the system is at idle to keep the processor at cooler temperatures. You will see
that the number drops when you begin to use the system. This does not take away your
processor power. As you can see in the picture below, although the System Idle Process
is showing a number of 99, but the actual CPU Usage is at 1%.
On Sunday, November 3, 2002 at 9:12 am, ckrokit wrote:
>What are your system specs? Specifically the motherboard manufacturer and model.
> Some motherboards have incompatibilities and have had to require replacement or
>be returned to the manufacturer for modification. This has happened to me. In
some
>cases, a BIOS upgrade can be done to fix it. There were MB's identified by MS and
>the vendors to be a problem. If you have one of those boards, the problem was that
>their design was not completed for the final ACPI spec. In some boards the CPU
usage
>is being incorrectly reported. This can either involve a fix from MS or can be
a
>design problem in the motherboard which can not be fixed and involves installing
>the Standard PC Hal which disables the ACPI. If it is a motherboard problem, you
>will find that what works in NT 4, does not work in Win 2000 and XP. As I have
written
>before in this forum, the system idle process is also incorporated in other OP systems,
>incuding MAC OS X, Linux, etc. If any of you have used software CPU coolers for
>Win 9X, this is essentially all a software cooler is. It just adds the system idle
>process. To date in all of the systems I have worked on (thousands of them), hardware
>has been the cause for reported problems in the system idle process and high idle
>CPU usage/sluggish response. Anybody having problems, send your specs to me and
>I will research it for you. I am trying to compile a list of hardware that seems
>to be causing this problem in 2000 and XP. As I said, if everything works OK in
>NT4, and your CPU usage hangs high (30-60% while idle) under 2000 XP, (check it
before
>any other software is installed) expect that you have a hardware problem and I suspect
>that your MB is 2 to 3 or more years older. If it is a new motherboard, (which
I
>haven't seen any to date) you may have to contact the MB vendor and tell them the
>problem you are having. At that point both MS and the vendor will have to bump
heads
>and decide what the problem is and how to fix it. C K
>
>
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