i understand these things can freak people out when they dont know about them, so dont worry about the fact that it will seem simple after this: a CPU/processor is always cycling around a list of instructions which it has put in a queue to do, because it can only do one thing at once. quicker processors seem to be able to do more than one thing at once because they are alternating between lines of code of both programs at tremendous speed. long and short of it is that it is always cycling through this list, even when parts - or all - of the list is empty. System Idle Process is the empty parts of this list. It is not taking up all your CPU power, it is just there to show you that you have that much CPU power remaining. Look into ram problems before you worry about your CPU because if you are seeing the idle process then your CPU has capacity to spare J