Windows XP - system getting laggy

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Edit: Okay, so I discovered that system idle processes is a good thing. So. My system is a bit laggy, and has been for a day or two.

I noticed my mouse cursor was getting laggy when I moved it around, which was weird, so I checked the Processes in the Windows Task Manger, and my System Idle Processes are taking 95 - 99% of the CPU. I noticed that it's been acting weird like this lately. I don't have any viruses or spyware; I keep my system pretty dang clean. Right now I have AIM, Firefox, and IE open. My system is a 2.8ghz p4 with 512 megs of ddr333, and it hasn't acted like this before.

Any ideas?
 

MrChad

Lifer
Aug 22, 2001
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System Idle Process means that your system is idle (i.e. not doing anything). Are you using an optical mouse or an old ball mouse?
 

Kaido

Elite Member & Kitchen Overlord
Feb 14, 2004
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Originally posted by: MrChad
System Idle Process means that your system is idle (i.e. not doing anything). Are you using an optical mouse or an old ball mouse?

ahhhh, just found this thru google on broadband reports:

Q: Why is the System Idle Process using 99% of my CPU? (#7481)

A: From Microsoft -- the definition of System Idle Process:
This process is a single thread running on each processor, which has the sole task of accounting for processor time when the system isn't processing other threads. In Task Manager, expect this process to account for the majority of processor time.

The system idle process uses all the CPU time that is not used by anything else. CPU time is like any other time; you can't not use it. If you do nothing, you're still using time: you are using time to do nothing.

If the system idle process is using 99% of the CPU, then your CPU is busy only 1% of the time. That's good, not bad.

I have a trackball plugged in to the ps2 port and an mx700 (wireless/optical) on a usb port. I use the mx700 most of the time. I just noticed that the trackball works fine, so it seems that whatever is mucking up the system is just affecting the usb mouse. hrm...