System Idle Process

[The Professor]

Idk what it is, but its taking up a fair portion of my CPU power atm. The graph on the task manager looks like a cross section of the alps. Anyone got any idea what might be causing it? Its only started today, the only things i've changed are installing the latest drivers for my graphics card(s), switching SLi mode on and installing AVG8.

Thanks in advance,

Alex

[Stephen!]

System Idle Process is the percentage of the CPU that is free.

[The Professor]

Ok, I'm confused now! Why is it taking up all of my CPU power (I'm sure theres a better term for "power" :P) and upsetting my poor PC?

[Stephen!]

It's not actually taking up any power at all - It's showing you how much % of your CPU is free.

[The Professor]

Ok, thanks :)

Does it only decide to do that when it can be bothered? It usually shows up as using 0 power. I've googled it and other people seem to be seeing the same thing, but they only post once so it must sort itself.

[lew!]

Yeah, Say a prog called msn.exe is using 49% of your CPU, Then system idle process will display its taking 51%, however in the CPU usage at the bottom of task manager it will show only 49%

[N!ck]

On task mananager click the the CPU column twice soi that it lists in orederr of CPU usage an lookfor processes that are constantly using up a lot or have "spikes", ignorring system idle process of course.