Shaun H Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 (edited) My computer keeps tripping over itself for no appparent reason. When I look at the task manager there's this "System Idle Process" which no matter what happens will take up all the CPU power just because it can. It's only taking up 28k of memory How the hell do I get it to f**k off!!!???!!!??? It won't let me end process on it. Grrrr! Edited November 19, 2007 by Shaun H Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroMatt Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 (edited) In short idle process is not a bad thing, if you are having speed issues I'd look elsewhere.Edit: An idle task is a special task loaded by the OS scheduler only when there is nothing for the computer to do. Edited November 19, 2007 by ZeroMatt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Rainbird Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 As far as I'm aware you don't want to be stopping it."System Idle Process" runs to keep track of how much time your computer is idle (and how often the CPU is being used, basically)It won't mess up anything, as it's set to lowest priority (ie. everything else gets put in front of it), so it won't be doing anything if the CPU power is needed elsewhereI'm no expert, but that's the impression I was given many moons agoAlso, see wikiIn case any computer people who know what they're on about come into this thread, please help me with this question in RSQ if you can!! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun H Posted November 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 Yeah but why is it taking up all my CPU power. It'll take all 100% if nothing else is running. And even whilst I'm typing this my laptop's just stopped about 4 times to catch up with itself...It's f**kin annoying now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JD™ Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 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 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun H Posted November 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 OK turns out I was jumping to conclusions, looks like it's actually Firefox causing the problem as I'm now using IE and it's fine. Anyone know what it might be as I'd rather not switch back to IE now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZeroMatt Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 OK turns out I was jumping to conclusions, looks like it's actually Firefox causing the problem as I'm now using IE and it's fine. Anyone know what it might be as I'd rather not switch back to IE now...Firefox uses loads of memory compared to ie could be that with ff you are using pretty much all of available memory? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 No, you're being an idiot System idle process is definitely NOT ruining your life. x86 CPUs (I.e. PCs) are not very good at doing nothing. Therefore Windows needs to feed it a constant supply of stuff to be doing. It's not a problem, it's supposed to be like that. Stop worrying. Oh, and for the love of God, don't use IE. WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun H Posted November 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 No, you're being an idiot System idle process is definitely NOT ruining your life. x86 CPUs (I.e. PCs) are not very good at doing nothing. Therefore Windows needs to feed it a constant supply of stuff to be doing. It's not a problem, it's supposed to be like that. Stop worrying. Oh, and for the love of God, don't use IE. WON'T SOMEBODY PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?I don't want to use IE but at the moment, it ruins my life less than Firefox. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomm Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 What exactly is ruining your life though?If your computer is running slowly, it is NOT because of the system idle process st33lin a11 yr MHz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Token Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 hehehe, I like to think of it as you have the ability to use 100% of CPU power, say a program like IE uses 10% then the system idle will report that there is still 90% left. Pretty simple really.Maybe you should tell us what the problem is with IE or Firefox? Then Tomm's children can be saved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spode@thinkbikes Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 The WIKI entry covers it nicely. If the system idle process wasn't there, your CPU would be running at it's maximum TDP the whole time. So it would get really hot, and chew up a lot of juice. Prior to Windows NT, you had to download and install a separate piece of software that would execute these HLT commands, that in fact tells the CPU to do nothing (a bit like a NOOP). NT onwards, the "System Idle Process" takes care of this for us. Just ignore it. FireFox as lovely and great as it is, can be a bit of a shit. It has memory leaks and can sometimes go a little crazy. My first port of call, would be to check for a FireFox update. If that doesn't work, it might be worth switching back to 1.5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Class Clown Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 My answer is use opera. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Extreme_biker0 Posted November 19, 2007 Report Share Posted November 19, 2007 My answer is use opera.N00b. I read the HTML with my brain. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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