I have heard of programs such as CPU Idle that perform halt commands during idle cycles of the 9x OS. Is there any such program for 2K/XP? If there are many, what is the best free one?

I've already try CpuIdle and it works great with my Athlon Thunderbird 266 at 1,33ghz (going from 45C idle to 30C idle), but when the free trial of 30 days comes to it's end i've stop using it, cause i don't want to pay 30$ for a program when a good fan cost less...But i've found another free program who do the same job, called VCool. With that i've got the same result as CpuIdle and for free and it also take less place in memory. Right now my temps are 27C for the cpu and 29C for the case. When running a 3d game or something who take juice my temps can go to 57C max and return rapidly to 30C at idle. Here the link: http://www.voodoofiles.com/home.asp?Item=4711 I hope it will help.

It seems like an effective tool. I have been using WPCREDIT to engage the halt cycle of my CPU, it takes no memory (or almost none, doesn't register as a process) because the companion program ,WPCRSET, that sets it permanently loads as a driver, not a program. I dropped idle temp from 46°C to 35°C easily. I need a program that will help a Pentium III, though. More specifically a Pentium III-M running WinXP, my laptop constantly overheats and reboots, often even when its idle.

If your comp reboot because the cpu overheat, i think u may need to buy a new cpu fan. A program can reduce the idle temps but not the loaded temps so your comp will no be very stable anyway.

I don’t use WIN 2K or WIN XP (much) but I understand that these OSs have a built in “halt” commands making CpuIdle superfluous. I use it with a 1.4 GHz Athlon and WIN98SE and my CPU idles at 24 C with a recent peak of 49 C and an average of 32 C.

Badboy: I have win xp installed and i downloaded cpuidle 6 pro for win xp and my temps drop by 20C at idle. Same thing with Vcool 1.7.2. I know this OS are supposed to have a built in “halt” commands but without any cooling program my idle temp is 45C-48C and with one of these program my idle range from 27C to 32C. I have a volcano 6+ and a case fan blowing directly on the cpu (Athlon T-B 266 fsb 1,33ghz) with correctly applied termal paste and i can't go under 45C at idle without cooling software. So Froggx i suggest u to download CpuIdle 6 Pro for win xp, it works with Intel and AMD and is very effective.

Thanks for the information WeEZeR! I don’t use WIN XP yet but my kids have it on their Dell. I’d read that CpuIdle wasn’t help with XP but I guess once I start running it, I’ll probably use it on those machines too.