Computing.Net > Forums > Windows NT > System idle Process shows 100% cpu usage

Computer Problems? Computing.Net has over 1,000,000 posts about all things technology related! Over 90% answered within 24 hours! Click here to start participating now! Also, be sure to check out the New User Guide.

System idle Process shows 100% cpu usage

Reply to Message Icon

Name: Mehul S Dave
Date: September 21, 2001 at 04:14:48 Pacific
Comment:

hello
I was having problems with 100% cpu usage & at the Microsoft site they specified to install the patch to overcome the problem & i did. Now System idle Process shows 100% cpu usage. Please give the solution at the earliest.
Thanking you.
Mehul



Sponsored Link
Ads by Google

Response Number 1
Name: Sterling Augustine
Date: September 21, 2001 at 10:04:51 Pacific
Reply:

What processes are you running.

Check taskmgr.


0

Response Number 2
Name: Larry
Date: September 21, 2001 at 18:08:02 Pacific
Reply:

Processors have to be doing something all of the time. Regardless of active tasks or not - they have to be busy so they created the idle process thread. The idle process is really the balance of all other tasks up to 100%


0

Response Number 3
Name: Dave Gill
Date: October 4, 2001 at 08:48:34 Pacific
Reply:

it just means the processor is doing nothing..as you run other apps you will see it dropping down from 100%....I would get worried if it were running at 0% as then you would have problems. It just means it is 100% idle.


0

Response Number 4
Name: Chris Roat
Date: November 6, 2001 at 10:22:07 Pacific
Reply:

I have a similar question. My usage shows
100% for the idle process, but I also hear
tons of disk access going on in the background.
Is it a problem of swap space? There is 450MB of
swap space on 3 different logical disks. This
should be enough.

Thanks for your help.


0

Response Number 5
Name: RichL
Date: November 9, 2001 at 13:40:25 Pacific
Reply:

While they may seem accurate, it is unlikely that they are correct. I get the same problems sometimes. The only thing running is Windows Explorer and Internet Explorer yet everything is responding slowly, e.g. navigating to a different local directory, etc. When I look at TaskMan and sort by CPU usage the System Idle Process is 90+% yet no other processes are taking up more than 1%. When processing speed returns to normal the System Idle Process is back down to around 5%. There must be something else going on in the background that is not registering.

Any ideas?


0

Related Posts

See More



Response Number 6
Name: Reece
Date: November 18, 2001 at 18:37:47 Pacific
Reply:

My system idle process is at on average 80%, however, the CPU usage meter shows it at 90-100 used all the time :S, I think the people at microsoft had no idea what so ever about what they were doing, but that's really no suprise :D,

hope someone can figure out what all this means,

Reece,


0

Response Number 7
Name: Phillip
Date: December 10, 2001 at 07:03:37 Pacific
Reply:

I see the same symptoms, constant disk activity, slow response but cpu usage on task manager very low.
I turned off xp's file indexing but saw no change.
The only unusual thing in my system is a 120gb ntfs partition. I noticed these problems when free space dropped below ~48gb.
Any more ideas?


0

Response Number 8
Name: moviska
Date: December 23, 2001 at 06:13:02 Pacific
Reply:

i have the similar problem, but my usage is jump from 0%-25% when i did nothing, does anyone knaow what happen?


0

Response Number 9
Name: Frank
Date: December 25, 2001 at 09:36:18 Pacific
Reply:

IT DOES NOT MATTER, THE CPU SHOWS 100% USAGE BECAUSE THE IDLE PROCESS SIMPLY USES UP 100% OF THE CPU, NO MATTER WHAT PROGRAM YOU RUN IT USUALLY TAKES UP 100% OF THE CPU, WHICH IS WHY PROGRAMS REQUIRE SLOWER CPU SPEED RUNS FASTER ON FASTER CPU.


0

Response Number 10
Name: Avenger
Date: December 27, 2001 at 02:49:19 Pacific
Reply:

I have the same problem but i cannot play games cause of the 100% cpu usage when i play... In windows sometimes my computer acts as if it has 50mhz. I have a p4 1.9ghz with 256 ddr ram


0

Response Number 11
Name: Avenger
Date: December 27, 2001 at 15:27:19 Pacific
Reply:

Could u tell me mehul which file u mean?
(could u write url plz?)


0

Response Number 12
Name: Sean
Date: December 27, 2001 at 17:15:23 Pacific
Reply:


That stupid system idle process is always cranking, slowing down printing, and whatever.

The disk almost always getting accessed, it sucks.

Windows sucks.

Windows XP sucks.

I want my money back.



0

Response Number 13
Name: hank
Date: January 3, 2002 at 13:15:41 Pacific
Reply:

I only have problems when I start my computer.It takes about a minute before things start reacting,very annoying,thereafter things run pretty well (windows xp 866,256)


0

Response Number 14
Name: Biji (by biji)
Date: January 5, 2002 at 00:17:04 Pacific
Reply:

I had this problem where Norton System Doctor was registering 100% CPU Usage pretty much all the time.
Turn out to be W32.HLLW.Bymer.
Everything went back to normal after deleting Bymer files.


0

Response Number 15
Name: Leandro Lima
Date: January 6, 2002 at 00:20:50 Pacific
Reply:

The 100% CPU usage is nothing to be concerned about. It will never interupt your normal usage of the CPU... It will only reach 100% if you are not using the CPU with other tasks...

Here is an Article I found on the Microsoft Database

http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=Q263201

Good luck!
Leandro


0

Response Number 16
Name: Jason
Date: January 10, 2002 at 10:33:44 Pacific
Reply:

So I had the issues as others describe - 100% CPU utilization/System Idle Process, and a hard drive that WOULD NOT stop churning and churning and churning in WinXP. This is what I did to (so far) resolve it...

It must have happened after I decided to run Windows Catalog from Start/Programs, but who knows... Anyway, go to Add/Remove Programs / Add/Remove Windows Components/Indexing Services. UNINTALL IT!

I now have had a nice quiet hard drive for a few hours. Hope it stays that way. I was very close to a reformat.

Good Luck!


0

Response Number 17
Name: Kate
Date: January 12, 2002 at 16:56:00 Pacific
Reply:

I think that some of you may be talking at cross purposes.

I have a major problem with my brand new system which intermitently runs jerkily. When it is playing up, Task Manager shows the CPU usage graph spiking at 100% every 5 seconds and the list of processes shows that the spike is caused by 'System' hogging the CPU. In the intervening seconds 'System Idle Process' shows 98ish which is to be expected. So, my problem, and I suspect some of the others who have posted above, is what is causing the System itself to hog all the CPU, leaving the rest of the processes to struggle? When it is behaving itself, the CPU usage graph remains around 5%.


0

Response Number 18
Name: Justin
Date: January 14, 2002 at 01:03:09 Pacific
Reply:

I am having the same problem, but with a twist. I recently put my computer together using a bare bones system and 800EB pentium chip I purchased last year. The motherboard reads my 800EB/133, as a 300/66 in bios, and 400/66 in bootup and windows. I've d/l'd intels processor frequency ID and it tells me that i do have an 800eb/133 and it's only running at 400/66. If I change the values of the chip in Bios to a higher number, it won't boot up, anything lower and i still get 400. So with that said, everytime i open a game, IE, or even a hard disk, the cpu usage jumps to 100%, if it is a game, it stays at 100% making it impossible to play. Yes i've updated the bios, yes the motherboard is compatible. There is 512K/100 ram. If I can't get the cpu speed up to 800, atleast help me stop it from hitting 100% usage.


0

Response Number 19
Name: David
Date: January 14, 2002 at 21:08:37 Pacific
Reply:

Some of you guys talked about a problem where windows shows 100% CPU use with System Idle Process... That is completely normal. The CPU always has to do something, else it is OFF!

Others mentionned the hard-disk cranking thing... this is ALSO normal : XP has a background utility that moves most-used files to the center of your hard-disk every three days. This makes applications load faster. Obviously, it does this when you are not using your computer : that is, when the Idle Process is running 100% CPU time!


0

Response Number 20
Name: Marcus Snyder
Date: January 21, 2002 at 15:48:06 Pacific
Reply:

Same problem, except that IE and downloads hang all the time. The XP system is on a laptop connected to a router connected to a DSL modem. My other PC is running 2K, no problems blinding web performance. It is all DHCP & NAT, so I have to assume it is the sucky performance of XP Home.


0

Response Number 21
Name: Tiffy
Date: February 5, 2002 at 10:33:57 Pacific
Reply:

Dell P4 1G, 128, W2k
When rendering files, spike from 0 to 100% CPU on graph between app process and sys.idle every 2 seconds.
I get a nice sine wave on the graph. Is this normal?



0

Response Number 22
Name: Derek Collie
Date: February 6, 2002 at 01:26:16 Pacific
Reply:

I think the people saying this problem is normal are not experiencing what the rest of us are. I'm running 2000 Professional on a Dell Latitude. The task manager shows 90-99% System Idle Process and the hard disk is spinning continuously and noisily. It's really annoying. Doing other tasks, like writing this, makes no difference. I bet a reboot will kill it but I don't want to do that every 5 minutes.


0

Response Number 23
Name: Jedi
Date: February 8, 2002 at 12:48:07 Pacific
Reply:

Sometimes I experience a problem with windows98 where I notice games chugging more than usual when the action gets dense (Medal of Honor) on my 1.2 ghz (running at 900) 512 meg sdram system w/ a 64 meg radeon VIVO card. I re-installed memturbo II, and discovered that something is taking 100% system processing which is NOT RIGHT in win98. The only way to fix this problem is to to reboot. Why does this process load occur? Is there a program that can determine which processes (ALL processes, kernels, etc.) are taking up how much of the cpu so I can diagnose where the issue is? thanx


0

Response Number 24
Name: Bernie
Date: February 10, 2002 at 15:48:50 Pacific
Reply:

I have uninstalled the indexing service on XP and my pc is running beautifully again - thanks to Jason (response 16 above)


0

Response Number 25
Name: Jim
Date: February 11, 2002 at 10:54:43 Pacific
Reply:

I am running Win2000Pro on a P3 450 system w/ 512MB RAM. I have 100% CPU usage just using a browser (was Netscape 4.7x, then I switched to IE thinking Netscape was the issue, but the problem remains). IE will max out the CPU, then of course pages will stop loading until it works thru all its cycles. I uninstalled indexing (see post16 and 24 above), but I still have the problem (but then, mine is a CPU prob on Win2K, not a disk prob on XP).

Most common apps I use are IE, Palm Desktop, Quicken, Word, and AIM. I'm on a small home network w/ DSL. I'll pay cash to anyone who can solve this one... it's driving me nuts.
thx,
Jim


0

Response Number 26
Name: Benzyl
Date: February 19, 2002 at 12:27:11 Pacific
Reply:

I thought it was idle process on mine but that was just a symptom, it turned out that for some reason Fastfind.exe was banging on almost continuously and the hardware calls were locking up processor use A LOT.


0

Response Number 27
Name: Jared
Date: February 22, 2002 at 19:13:26 Pacific
Reply:

Wow

I had the lag problem (sluggish, whatever...) driving me nuts. Just uninstalled indexing service (per #16's instructions) and seems to have cured it.

Thanks!


0

Sponsored Link
Ads by Google
Reply to Message Icon






Post Locked

This post is quite old and has been locked from receiving new replies. Please create a new posting instead.


Go to Windows NT Forum Home


Sponsored links

Ads by Google


Results for: System idle Process shows 100% cpu usage

100% CPU usage in NT-4 Service pack 6 www.computing.net/answers/windows-nt/100-cpu-usage-in-nt4-service-pack-6/14870.html

msmsn.exe causing 100% cpu usage www.computing.net/answers/windows-nt/msmsnexe-causing-100-cpu-usage/22293.html

High Cpu Usage When Idle www.computing.net/answers/windows-nt/high-cpu-usage-when-idle/15342.html