Hi, I'm operating on a DELL Latitude D610, Windows XP Service Pack 2 Intel Pentium M Processor 1.60 GHz, 512 MB RAM - and am currently having problems regarding CPU usage. The Image Name "System" (not System Idle Process) is giving between 85-100% CPU usage causing the laptop to regularly freeze. This began out of the blue approximately one week ago..no programs were being installed at the time. If I switch the computer off with the problem and turn back on soon after it takes only a few mins for ""System" to reach ~100%. I've then noticed if I turn it off and leave over night, the following morning when I switch on it may take over an hour (or even more) for "System" usage to shoot up. I've ran Event Viewer which has shown the following sources of error in the System : W32Time, Dhcp, Service Control Manager. Of the 3, W32Time seems to be recording the most amount of errors. Under Application, the errors shown include a mixture of : ApplicationHang, AutoEnrollment, Userenv, McLogEvent, Alert Manager Event Interface. As I'm not very computer literate - any ideas on what these mean and/or whether their presence explains the problems I'm having. I also downloaded Process Explorer but not sure what I'm supposed to be looking for here - I can provide this info if needed. The other thing I've noticed is that when I lift the base of the laptop up and manoeuvre it around the CPU bar seems to drop dramatically. When I restore the laptop back to its normal position it then returns to 100%. Any ideas why this might happen? Internal problem? In addition, I had a new Hard Drive and motherboard put in just after the New Year (early January) but the laptop had been working fine for a month before this suddenely happened. I'd appreciate any constructive feedback from anyone as this problem is driving me crazy and I'm trying to write a thesis in the meantime!!! Thanks, Niall

Reading between the lines, I suspect this issue might be heat related. Are you capable of checking the fan(s) on the notebook?

Well I've downloaded SpeedFan which outputs an ACPI temperature (??) of 54 degrees and a HDO temperature of 42 degrees. Are these related to the CPU temperature do you know? Do you know any other way of checking the fans off hand? Thanks for the reply Thanks, Niall

You may have to crack the notebook open.

I've just delved into Process Explorer a bit further and double-clicked on the System process which shows that its the acpi.sys thread 96 alone that accounts for all the system process's kernel time and is causing the CPU usage to jump so high. Shed any further light? Thanks, Niall