How to break down System Idle Process ?

freestyla

Hey anyone knows HOW to use Process Explorer to check, what is causing System Idle Process to have bumpy CPU usage?
It's using from 0% to 100% randomly either opening applications or in idle. Something is irritating it..



Slowness problems started already when installed PGP Encryption for HDD (thats must have, can't take it off) but seems like slowness is getting worst.

LENOVO ThinkCentre M55
Intel Core 2 Duo E6300 @ 1.86GHz
2 x 1GB DDR2 Hyndai PC2-5300 (333 MHz)
78GB Hitachi Hitachi HDS721680PLA380 (SATA)
Intel(R) Q965/Q963 Express Chipset Family
USB 2.0 VGA DEVICE-1(this is connecting second monitor for extended display view).

jnaseer

Hi there,
Yep it can be annoying to see the idle process hogging all the CPU but that's actually normal!

The system idle process runs when the machine is doing nothing. It usually sends instructions called halt signals to the processor to slow it down and use less power which also will require less cooling. The process runs as the lowest priority on the system, so if something else needs computing power it be allowed it as it will have higher priority. The machine jobs are running on a constant scheduler also, by running the idle process it prevents a "special case".

It's quite complex to delve into it too deeply.

Just, rest assured that when you see your processor being hogged by the idle process it means that it's not really doing anything to affect the performance of the machine.

Johan.

freestyla

Thanks on fast reply mate.. Yeah maybe I should concentrate more on HDD diagnostics to find out cause of glitches and slowness.

Dunno if more RAM or dedicated graphic card would help too.

jnaseer

Those sysinternals tools are good. It's useful to use the disk tools to find out what processes are hogging the disk. I think it's safe to assume the CPU is not lagging the system if it's showing idle the majority of the time. You have a nice bit of memory there aswell. What apps are you trying to use?

It's important to note that if Windows has alot of memory available it doesn't mean it's not using a paging file. Windows keeps alot of memory free in case it needs to use it suddenly as opposed to swapping everything out when you need it.

freestyla

jnaseer wrote: »

Those sysinternals tools are good. It's useful to use the disk tools to find out what processes are hogging the disk.... What apps are you trying to use?

It does feels like something is hogging the disk - but what tool exactly for this purpose?

It's my work PC, a couple of years old. Most used apps are remote control tools, Lotus Notes 8 and Firefox many tabs.
I also use a lot Paint Shop Pro or MS Paint but damn this thing is so slow it draws JPG and PNG pictures like rendering 15mpx RAW files

It would be awesome to proof i.e. that this PGP encryption software is making my PC run slow so that I can ask for exemption from my manager
Don't need an encryption seriously this is desktop PC locked in a very safe building anyway.

jnaseer

Check this out and see what you can find - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645

If you need some help I'll be glad to assist. Very useful tool this - shows you what all the processes are doing. Set to autoscroll just to see how much is going on!