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Question about System idle process

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dmatko

Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2004
i have searched about it, and know that it doesnt really do anything but put your cpu into like a sleep mode, or sumtin. only thing is, why is it running all the time, even when im doin something. also, should my HD be runnin too? it sounds like its constantly workin.
 
The System Idle Process does nothing as far as I know. It is just there to show you what percentage of your cpu power is going wasted, when it could be doing something useful like Folding :D Here is a link for you if your interested.
Folding

And yes, your hard drive is constantly spinning. You CAN have it power down, but it is recommended to leave it spinning.
 
Well if you are not doing anything with your computer, than you should not hear you HDD working. If you are playing a game or music or pretty much anything, then you will hear it working.

If the computer is idle than you will see that with the system idle proceess. It will sit around 99% and go down, as CPU power goes to do something else. Its normal and nothing to be concered with.

I also suggest supporting on of the O/C teams that are running DC projects, wether it be F@H or S@H.

You can find more on both, here.

http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=21

http://www.ocforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=18
 
System idle process shows the percentage of processor time currently spent idle.

If you can hear your HDD grinding from access it isn't because of this process but may be due to unneccesary services running in the background.

Indexing service can and often will grind your HDD. IMO it causes more wear and tear on the drive than it is worth.

To turn off this and other unnecessary services press windows button+r and type services.msc then hit enter. Look through, stop and disable anything you don't need... For help refer to the services guide at www.blackviper.com
 
Actually, I believe the System Idle process sends the HLT instruction to your CPU when it is idle to reduce power consumption. Of course it's running all the time, it constantly takes up all idle CPU cycles, but it shouldn't use up any non-idle CPU time or cause HDD access. Perhaps something else is causing the HDD access?
 
System Idle Process, is the amount of clock cycles that you are not using basically. If somebody took the time (and had the patience) to add up all the percentages, factoring in the idle, you would see that it equals 100%. Hence the reason, when you are running something that peaks out your clock cycles, the idle process shows 0%.
 
thanks for all the answers, ill try that command imog mentioned and see if it helps out.

i actually am running seti, but its on my other computer for now. im still tryin to set this one up correctly. my name is finder, i think?
as of right now, im reverting my hd to a past state due to a program integrity error that keeps commin up for norton sys works.

thanx again...:)
 
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