System Idle Process

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Mine is taking up 95 CPU, and my PC is working on overtime, even though I only have firefox and MSN up... Any clue? Could it be a hot hard-drive, as my casing has come off and the fan could be a bit messed up.

[Erik]

"System idle process" is how much time the CPU is idle (ie: not working*).

So if "System idle process" consumes 95% it means you are only using 5% of CPU time.
It's still high, I only consume 1% and I don't have a fast CPU at all, so I suspect there are some background processes that take up CPU time.

*it's actually impossible to put a CPU on idle, it has to work on something all the time, so windows just feeds it a very simple program to keep the CPU busy until it's needed for a real job again.

[removeduser_426582376423734]

Well, I had no idea, thanks But anyway, what could this be that takes up so much, even though it doesn't show on my processes?

[fatsheep]

Are experiencing any slow downs or technical problems? If not, don't worry about it.

[Erik]

Well, I had no idea, thanks But anyway, what could this be that takes up so much, even though it doesn't show on my processes?

To find out:
Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to bring up the Windows Task Manager.
Select the "processes" tab and click on "CPU" to sort the active processes on CPU usage.

On second thought: it was probably just the program you use to view the CPU load.
Even a simple program like Windows Task Manager can consume a few % of CPU time.
If you used a program with a nice graphical representation of CPU load I wouldn't be surprised if it took 5% of CPU load just to gather the data and draw the graph.