Idle CPU usage help!

[MrChipMuthabored]

What should your CPU usage be when its idle? Around maybe, 0-10%, right? Well mine spikes up to 50% when idle. What the heck is going on? I've got nothing running (explorer and systray only), so why would the cpu be working so hard? The cpu used to hit 100% at times and give me an hourglass, but every since I defragged, it went down, but still, 50% cpu usage at idle is pretty weird. I also changed my swap file (virtual memory) settings so that they are static, and so the CPU won't have to re-size them.

Check out my system specs below!

Thanks!

 

[Poof]

What are you using to look at your CPU/process usage?

 

[Zephyr]

is it by any chance Win98 system monitor? I've never seen it work properly on Athlon based systems

 

[MrChipMuthabored]

Zephyr:

Its very interesting that you mention that! As you noticed, I do have an Athlon CPU, and you say that WIN98's system monitor doesn't work well with Athlons.

I first noticed the problem using Rambooster, as it has a CPU usage monitor on it. I think it uses WIN98's system monitor, as its numbers are identical. Yesterday I got the CPU refridgerator and I noticed that the numbers are significantly less when idle (should be ~5%-10%), and are the numbers they should be.

So I think that might be it.

Thanx!

 

[dennilfloss]

Try Wintop or Another Task Manager.

 

[Cubensis]

Yep that is a very good one !
It runs like hell on my computers

 

[bacillus]

try unchecking unwanted or infrequently used applications in msconfig to reduce number of background applications running!

 

[MrChipMuthabored]

Yeah, wintop is a great program. I also have CPU refridgerator and that is a pretty good cpu monitor too. Yeah my suspisions aroused when I wasn't getting the same numbers in the WIN98 system monitor and WINTOP and CPU frige. Zephyr confirmed them.


THNX!

 

[psykohog]

Hey thanks guys, this a great little program I just downloaded it.