Is your CPU usage at 100% all the time? Mine is. 1

[cbestengineer]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum, but not new to reading them.
I just re-read this, and I appologise for it being so long.

I am an avid techie. I built all 4 computer I have in our home.

Right now, I have a P4 Int. Cel. 1.7Ghz running on a MB with DDR RAM, 400MHzFSB/533BSB, WIN98 Plus and IDE ATA of 133Mhz.

Whats the deal with the CPU useage at 100% all the time???
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For those who don't know...Check you CPU usage by opeming your Program called "System Monitor" or go to "START", "RUN", and type "sysmon", "OK"..
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My system does have a bottleneck which is the HD speed of 33Hz. I will be purchasing a new one today of 133.

The CPU temp hovers around 48°C idle, and 50°C loaded. I ran "PCmaker2002" and found no problems with the system. No "RED X's" in Device menu. And I ran a virus scan,(although not compressed files), and found nothing. I have a very tight firewall too.

I have unchecked all items, except the two necessary files, in my Msconfig. And still, I'm loaded.

I have item in the Msconfig, which are no longer installed on the computer, but thats another question for another time.

Now what?

Thanks for your help,
Craig

 

[carrr]

Does it read 100% if you restart in safe mode?

 

[cbestengineer]

I haven't tried that, but I will tonight. Thanks for the tip carrr.

 

[ceh4702]

One thing that affects CPU usage is memory. When ever a system runs out of meory, it is quite common to start using the harddrive for swapping page files. Normally if CPU usage is 100% something is wrong. Do not misinterpret System resources with CPU Usage. It is quite common for the CPU to sit around waiting for some other machine function to complete. The rest of the computer always runs slower than the CPU. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[cbestengineer]

ceh4702

I have 256MB of DDR RAM. Is that not enough?

Craig

 

[cbestengineer]

I have also read in other threads, that I should be looking at the registry for errors.

What does this mean?

Where is it?

What do I look for to be wrong?

Can I delete lines from it?

What if I make a mistake? Will it damage the system?

Thanks,
Craig Keep Learning!

 

[KimLeece]

It sounds like it's something like cpuidle - are you running XP? XP has a idle program built in called System Idle Process and if you check the running processes you'll see that it takes up all of the cpu that is not being used by something else - cpuidle does exactly the same thing and is supplied with some Mboards - I have an Asus A7V333 and it came with that. The point of the programs is to keep the CPU cooler - you can find out more about cpuidle itself at:

http://www.cpuidle.de

In any event it doesn't matter too much as it only uses what you are not using - i.e. if you start another program it get all the CPU space it needs - these programs only operate when the CPU has nothing to do.

Kim Leece.

 

[KimLeece]

I'm sorry - I just re-read your first post and saw you have Win 98 Plus - it still could be something like cpuidle though....

Kim Leece.

 

[ceh4702]

It is also possible that your operating system is simply misreporting the values. Wouldnt be the first time windows had a bug. If you do not like my post feel free to point out your opinion or my errors.

 

[cbestengineer]

ceh4702 my friend, you get a star for that one!

Indeed it was,

HERE's THE ANSWER...
I downloaded a third party cpu monitor, and it confirmed the cpu usage was acutally running very low. and peaking as it should...turns out, the firewall I had installed along with the drivers for the router I have was helping the System Monitor to display incorrect values.

I found it by installing a new HD, and along the process, I checked the CPU usage after every install of hardware or software.

So, for now, I will simply ignore it.

Thanks again everyone!

Craig




Keep Learning!