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I have a problem. When my PC is freshly started and no programs are running my CPU usage is 48-52%. The system idle process has 99% of that.
What is the problem? Can it be that I have a USB Dual Optical mouse and an USB Printer? The earlier questions I have read has led me in that direction, but when I unplug the cords the usage is still high?
I have an Athlon 1Ghz and 512 MB RAM.
System Idle Process is not a program taking up the processor, it is like a mother looking after the computer. WHile you may want to check your sestem startup programs running in the lower right hand corner of your screen, e-mail me for more info if you would like jktucker@adelphia.net
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I have the same problem on XP. All my research points to my scanner. In fact, it uses 100% of the resources. I found a registry tweak, but my scanner is not listed in the correct file that the tweak states it is so I cannot fix it. I am starting to be really concerning that XP is not the program it was reported to be. I have a brand new Gateway with 256 ram and Pentium IV. I should never have these problems. Can anyone help? Also, XP will not let you install older printer manager programs so you cannot print in color, etc. I have been trying to find answers to these issues for two months now.
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There is nothing wrong with XP. System IDLE process is just what XP does when no other program is using the CPU. Hence it is called an IDLE process. I am actually more worried that it isn't taking up more. When I am not running any programs my idle process takes 99% of the CPU. The fact that yours is running at 50% means that other programs are hogging the other 50% which is not normal and means that any program you run will only have 50% of the CPU available to it. Basicaly, if you add up all the percentages in the CPU column, they always add up to 100% (accounting for rounding) because the CPU doesn't just sit there and do nothing. That is why the operating system has an idle loop that does routine mainenance operations such as checking interrupts, doing memory management, etc. If any other program wants to use the CPU, the idle process steps back and hands over control to the program. When the program is done, the idle process takes over again. Once again, Microsoft gets blamed for a problem that isn't their fault. Happens all the time actually. But if we didn't blame Microsoft, we might actually realize that our hardware sucks and is causing the computer to crash, not Windows. (you get what you pay for in hardware -- and often you get LESS than you pay for) And no, I am not employed or otherwise compensated by Microsoft.
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TOBY: You have got it wrong from the beginning. It is not on the processes view that the usage is 50%. There it is 99% as it should. It is on the other tab where it shows how much the CPU is working.Everyone: It was 50% before but by uninstalling my USB printer now it is down to 16% And i can run a lot more programs before it is 100%. So everybody. USB is the problem.
Thank you all!
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The idea that was your USB printer was the culprit is not suprising. USB printing devices continously polls the port wasting resources all around and can reek total havoc on other USB devices like USB external CD/RW. I had this problem about a year ago when I purchased a external USB CD/RW...could never burn any CDs...coasters continously! Iomega was not help at all, but someone that visited the forums they set up, that allows other users to help other users, narrowed down the burning problem to USB printers. I was only able to reliably burn CDs by unplugging the printer from the USB Port. Turning off the printer was not good enough because the polling occurs because the device is plugged into the USB Port. I would had not thought that the Idle Process percentage would be related, but it certainly makes sense. I refused to jump on "how great USB is" bandwagon when it first was developed and I still refuse to jump on the bandwagon because of such issues!
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My "System Idle Process" was up to 98% (my cpu usage however was at 0) and the system (the hard drive) was making a lot of noise! I just figured out what my problem was, and maybe this will help you - disk indexing was running. This is a feature in XP that indexes your whole hard drive to make your searches faster. You can turn it off by going to "search files and folders", then click "change preferences", then "without indexing service" and then select "no - do not enable indexing service" . You may also want to delete any catalogues in the advanced settings thing.
-Jonathan
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