System Idle Process slowing down my PC...

[h_kunte]

Hello all..

I formatted my boot drive last month & at present I am working on a relatively "new" OS on my system. By new I mean that I havent installed all the softwares that I generally need to use.

Of late I noticed a drop in the performance in my PC. I snooped around a bit & noticed that the "System Idle Process" takes up a lot of resources during normal running of the PC. The display goes slow, the mouse goes jumpy & I have had a really tough time. Theres NO virus or spyware on my system. So please dont tell me that it may be because of a spyware residing on my system.

I am attaching a screenshot of my task manager window showing the memory usage...Do check it out...

*img149.imageshack.us/img149/2866/13qw7.th.jpg
My system configuration is as follows:
AMD Athlon 64 3000+
MSI rs 480 IL Mobo
2*512 MB RAM Hynix
2*80 GB SATA HDD
DVD ROM, DVD RW

Looking for possible reasons as to why the process might be taking up so much memory...

Thanx.

-HK.

 

[Choto Cheeta]

Theres NO virus or spyware on my system. So please dont tell me that it may be because of a spyware residing on my system.

How u know that ??

as what i can see if u have a performance down... may be because of a Spyware or Virus...

as,

System Idle Process is supposed to have a high CPU usage rate at idle. This process accounts for unused system time. If your system is responsive and the System Idle Process CPU usage is high, then you do not have a CPU usage issue. If you leave the Task Manager open and run a program, you will notice that the System Idle process decreases its CPU usage.

 

[Vishal Gupta]

U can also disable following entries from startup to speedup ur system:

ctfmon.exe
ghosttray.exe
jusched.exe
PQV2isvc.exe

 

[h_kunte]

@Vishal Gupta.

Man...YOu are FAR more senior to me when it comes to being experienced..So I guess you know what I am going to write further...

As far as ghosttray & PQV2isvc are concerned, they are Norton Ghost processes & cant be shut down because I have scheduled incremental backups on my HDD. And PQVisvc is used to monitor the changes made to my HDD partition since the last backup was made.

As far as ctfmon is concerned, I have NO idea what application is running that process. But it seems harmless to shut it down, since it is NOT a system or network process. I will try shutting that down.

But still any reason why the System Idle process should have SO much CPU usage repeatedly?????

-HK.

 

[yogeshm02]

Well I'm not having much core level information regarding the system, but as far as I can imagine System Idle Process is the process which the OS/kernel pass control to when it has nothing to do. You may note that the usage shown is in percent. So, if you leave your system idle, the control remains with System Idle Process hence the reason it shows high percentage. This is standard and it is the same story with my Linux box also.

I've tried to explain in as plain terms as possible, hope it helps.


Bye


EDIT: Is the SIP using 28K of memory really worrying you?

 

[Vishal Gupta]

@Vishal Gupta.

Man...YOu are FAR more senior to me when it comes to being experienced..So I guess you know what I am going to write further...

As far as ghosttray & PQV2isvc are concerned, they are Norton Ghost processes & cant be shut down because I have scheduled incremental backups on my HDD. And PQVisvc is used to monitor the changes made to my HDD partition since the last backup was made.

As far as ctfmon is concerned, I have NO idea what application is running that process. But it seems harmless to shut it down, since it is NOT a system or network process. I will try shutting that down.

But still any reason why the System Idle process should have SO much CPU usage repeatedly?????

-HK.

I suggested u to disable those Norton Ghost services bcoz they always run in background and take system resources.
But if u hv scheduled the backup, then don't disable them

Regarding to ctfmon.exe, its generally starts after installing MS office. U can safely remove it from startup.

And don't worry about "system idle process", it shows the remaining CPU resources, i.e., if some services r taking 05 CPU resources, then "system idle process" will show 100-05=95 CPU resources. SO don;t worry about it.

 

[Kiran.dks]

Hey! System Idle Process of 99% is completely normal! I wonder why are you worrying about it. System Idle Process is not the resources consumed at all. It is the balance resources, which implies CPU is idle, nothing is being processed.

 

[gg_3000]

As far as ctfmon is concerned, I have NO idea what application is running that process. But it seems harmless to shut it down, since it is NOT a system or network process. I will try shutting that down.

I would like 2 recommend WinTasks, an application that gives description for all the processes running.. It has a very good database.. u can get it frm here

*www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Miscellaneous/WinTasks-Professional.shtml

 

[anandk]

my systemidle shows 97 / 98 cpu & 16K mem usge.
shud i panic ? *i144.photobucket.com/albums/r168/happyandy/surprised.gif

 

[h_kunte]

my systemidle shows 97 / 98 cpu & 16K mem usge.
shud i panic ? *smilies.sofrayt.com/^/aiw/boredom.gif

Bah...STOP being sarcastic...Atleast I got to learn what system idle is all about....

 

[Choto Cheeta]

Bah...STOP being sarcastic...Atleast I got to learn what system idle is all about....

never mind... its (this forum) a hang out place for lot of people... a little jocking is not that bad... dont take his remark otherways... just consider as a joke...

 

[anandk]

Bah...STOP being sarcastic...Atleast I got to learn what system idle is all about....

hey relax...take it lightly ! learnt about it too pal !

 

[s18000rpm]

Hey! System Idle Process of 99% is completely normal! I wonder why are you worrying about it. System Idle Process is not the resources consumed at all. It is the balance resources, which implies CPU is idle, nothing is being processed.

& all these time i thought System Idle Process took too much resources.


Thanks @Kiran.

 

[: SPiRiT :]

Well people its not the CPU that shud concern u.. its the Memory usage that shud be of concern.. Well u can very well see that the highes resource consuming prog is Opera.. Google talk... there is definitly no reason for these progams to gulp so much memory until u playing some online game or watching a movie online.. and ans for google talk.. the progam is made to consume very less resource..(its not much graphical interface can say it all)..

And harshvardhan... u can disable some of uer services if u area stand alone user.. Windows XP has a lot of services running in background that may not be required for a stand alone user... Hence u may even reduce the memory usage of SVCHOST.EXE...