Idle CPU load...

Guess that's kinda an oxy-moron

Anyway, what's your idle CPU load? Mine stays at about 13%. But no processes are using up to 13% (only 3% depending on how SVCHost goes). I'm starting to get concerned about wearing out the CPU...

Edit: Forgot to mention that I'm running XP Pro...

Mine is 0%. You must have some sort of program running in the background. Get rid of it. It is hindering your overclock!!!!

Same here, always at 0/99 System Idle Load when nothing's running, probably something in the background.
Do Control/Alt/Delete, under processes it should show you what program has that 13%.

idle

0%~1%, but I fold so its never idle.
NT4, Win2k, and WinXP are all supposed to have a halt on idle command, which allows the cpu to stay cooler when it's doing nothing. Make sure no prcesses are running.

No processes are running and using CPU time that task manager reports. I guess I could have a service going in the background that it doesn't report, but i had never heard of something like that...

mike that's a strange one. AFAIK, any thing running under XP should show up under the Processes list. Did you do a virus/trojan check? That would be my next step.
Good luck,
Mike G

I did do a virus check...not really sure how to do a trojan check beyond that. It found nothing...

Well, I fixed it. I reinstalled XP Pro (just upgraded--didn't do a fresh install) and the CPU actually goes idle now...

I bet you had Kazza installed on that computer before, it contains an hidden spyware program that always runs on the background and takes proessing power without people noticing.

Your computer doesn't actually let you run to CPU at full idle in order to prevent wearing it out. If a cpu ran full idle, the temps would continually be diving up and down so much that soon your cpu core would crack from the stress of continually expanding and shrinking. To prevent this, a certain amount of cpu resources are being used all the time. As soon as more cpu processes are being used than the minimum required, these resources are made free. I had a older k6-2 motherboard that actually kept my cpu at 30%. Windows XP, mean while, only show the resouces being used by applications (excluding backround applications) so it reads 0%. I hope this helps you.
If a backround program (such as a virus) is doing it's work, it is not taken as a backround program and therefore much of your cpu resourses are being used.