System idle process?

d_b · Post by **d_b** » Mon May 08, 2006 5:16 am

IN task manger under precesses my system idle proecess is constantly between90 and 99. I dodnt think its supposed to be that high. Any ideas on what is causing that?

eGoCeNTRoNiX · Post by **eGoCeNTRoNiX** » Mon May 08, 2006 6:51 am

The lack of folding at home on your PC will cause extremely high usuage by that process..

lol.. It's normal

eGo

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Mon May 08, 2006 9:36 am

Totally normal.

d_b · Post by **d_b** » Mon May 08, 2006 9:42 am

thats good news. thank you much!

Qui Gon-Jinn · Post by **Qui Gon-Jinn** » Mon May 08, 2006 10:35 am

quite normal.. just check how many actual process you have going.. 30-40 good.. 40-50 ok.. 50+ look at whats going on.. I try to keep mine on most machines in the 35 range.. but I have seen some servers running upwards of 60..

wpublic · Post by **wpublic** » Mon May 08, 2006 7:17 pm

also, a good thing to watch is cpu time which is on there by default and mem usage, which you will probably have to go in task manager|processes tab, then under "view", choose "select columns" to show it in task manager.

d_b · Post by **d_b** » Mon May 08, 2006 8:33 pm

I keep mine at 20 or so processes. When ever I paly a game the cpu usage for that game is anywhere from 90 to 99. At times the games lag. System is DFI lanparty nf4 ultra D, A64 3700, EVGA 6800 gs and 1 gig of ocz ram. Nothing is over clocked and until this past weeked it ran good. I dont see a slow down in Photoshop. Games are Joint ops, Fear, Ghost Recon advanced warfighter.

Qui Gon-Jinn · Post by **Qui Gon-Jinn** » Tue May 09, 2006 6:48 am

any Spware/Adware/AV scans done lately??

sounds like process's are under control.. but that doesn't mean somthing isn't running amuck

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue May 09, 2006 2:00 pm

Don't know about the others, but FEAR is a resource hog and even on a high end system it can lag. I found it also likes 2Gb although it will run okay on 1Gb.

Perfectly normal for a 3D game to be using all your CPU power.

If you haven't done it in a while, do a defrag.

Check to make sure that your hard drive is being accessed at the proper speed. XP has an annoying habit of throttling down the IDE access speed if it detects ANY IDE errors (even on the CD-Rom). This won't apply if you're running SATA though. Go to device manager - IDE Controllers -> Primary IDE Channel -> Properties -> Advanced Settings tab. Make sure the Master device (device 0, which will be your boot drive) is set to Ultra DMA Mode 5 or 6 (this will depend on whether your drive is ATA100 or 133).

Do run a thorough spyware scan if you think something fishy is going on. Refer to my spyware removal page here: http://theflyingpenguin.com/spyware-removal.shtml

Did you install any new background apps recently? Like a new AntiVirus? McAfee and Norton are notorious resource hogs - I prefer AVG which uses FAR less RAM. Anti-Spyware will also slow your system down dramatically. I generally don't run it in the background on my gaming system - I just scan once every few weeks.

Install a new printer recently? If you didn't install the old printer's driver and background utility, it may be slowing the system down by needlessly searching for the old printer. Lexmark and HP drivers are notorious for this.

Has this system rebooted recently? You might have a memory leak. Off hand I'd say if you have less than 650Mb free with no apps running while you're at the desktop, then you need to trim down some of your background apps.

I'm curious. Close all windows and open the task manager. From the Performance Tab, post your Total Commit Charge and let me see how much memory you're using when idle.

If you want, run post your HiJackThis! log here and let me look at it. Maybe I'll spot something fishy.

d_b · Post by **d_b** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:46 pm

Nothing new added to system in last 2 weeks. No printer, recently scanned for virus, malware came up clean. Dont actively run any type of scanner or security suit at all. Defragged every week using DisKeeper. All drives are SATA except the DVD burner. I shut system down every night.

Thank you FP for taking the time to help me, I appreciate it very much!

Commit charge is 163M / 2461M...bad cut job on my part.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue May 09, 2006 4:53 pm

Actually that's very nice and low. If you're using less than 200Mb at idle, I'd say your system is pretty damn clean.

d_b · Post by **d_b** » Tue May 09, 2006 5:58 pm

Ok thanks. Maybe its me and not the machine...lol