I had the same problem on my laptop - which only started recently. I traced it to Norton doing an auto scan. I changed to a manual scan and now it works ok.
Norton is not installed on any of these PCs. I actually uninstalled McAfee to make sure it wasn’t the problem and that didn’t resolve the issue. I also stopped all the services in msconfig and turned them back on one at a time until I found the service that was causing the issue. I discoved that is was the “workstation” service that was casuing this performance hit. I narrowed it down further to the “Client for Microsoft Networks”.
I discovered that when I disable “Client for Microsoft Networks” from the properties of the NIC, the PCs perform as they should with applications launching quickly and the systems running smoothly. Based on this finding, I uninstalled “Client for Microsoft Networks” and rebooted, then reinstalled “Client for Microsoft Networks” and rebooted once more. Upon doing this, I noticed that initially performance would improve but as time went by it would sporadically get worse. However, the PCs would perform slightly better than they did before I uninstalled and reinstalled “Client for Microsoft Networks”, but still nowhere near the level of performance that they were at before Tuesday morning, when this problem arose. Obliviously, the users need “Client for Microsoft Networks” installed and enable in order to communicate over the network with other computers with in the same domain. Therefore, something behind the scenes of “Client for Microsoft Networks” is causing these performance issues, not sure what though.
Please Help…
Hi, I don’t have too much experience. I had the same problem for months, check the fan that is connected with your CPU, if it doesn’t work, change it. If it does clean the union because it gets dirty and don’t let the air goes thru like in my case and the main unit gets hot. Now, my computer is like new and don’t have that problem anymore.
It’s possible that there are several problems with similar symptoms, and that one or more of the above solutions will solve any specific case. Or not.
I’ve got no commonalities with the above situations(or Norton), however, it wouldn’t surprise me if some scans, diagnostics or maintenance tasks (setting restore points, etc.) are running unidentified under the ‘idle process’ and not appearing on the Task Manager.
The recurring theme I’m seeing seems to revolve around Microsoft updates and Windows Defender (and updates thereto). Disabling Automatic Updates seems to reduce unexpected tie-ups, but the trial period is in its initial stages.
Yes, I fell for this. So I did what I always do and searched for system idle process on yahoo. The first result on the page was a scam link for a company called netcom3 pretending to be consumer reports and recommending the registry cleaning software. Looking back on it netcom3 version 1.0 should have been a clue but I got alway to putting in my CC info. Luckly it all just didn’t seem right and I avoided paying some loser scammers. It seems this “company” has all kinds of internet scams. The link below was the first result on yahoo when you search for “system idle process”. I consider myself fairly computer literate but I was almost taken by this.
I saw two posts hinting at this, but perhaps not directly enough:
If the CPU is waiting for something else to finish (like reading from the harddrive, or something else like the videocard is working without any need for the CPU) it has nothing to do!
I guess the typical situation where you’d (wrongly) accuse the idle process for “stealing your CPU” is when a program slows down and the computer itself starts ticking like mad. This ticking is the harddrive searching (or the CD/DVD etc running) wich may be because it is doing a lot of searching, reading and or writing, this is why the CPU is idle: it’s waiting for the harddrive to finish whatever it is doing.
The stuff going to and from the harddrive (when you’re not explicitly saving or reading files) is typically pagefiles in the virtual memory being moved between the RAM and harddisk. When the memory page needed is not in the RAM and must be read from disk it’s called a “page fault” to many page faults slow down your computer without using much CPU.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_memory
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_fault#Performance
(Sorry long post…)
There very well could be many different problems being describe in this thread. The issue I had sounds very similar, this info solved the problem.
I think the most helpful bits are
- Get Process Explorer immediately, Task Manager is misleading you.
- Hardware Interrupts will crush your system when opening certain Software (go figure, only Microsoft would hide this in a section titled System IDLE Process)
My system has been dog doo slow since I did a reinstall a couple weeks back. Process Explorer was showing some outrageous hardware interrupt rates, on occasion as high as 50% and regularly at 20%.
I’d let it roll for a couple weeks simply because it was low on my frustration list and I was trying to roll through other things. It finally pissed me off enough tonight that I spent some time nailing it down. Turns out ATA/IDE controllers will often revert back to PIO mode instead of Ultra-DMA. (MS KB article on the problem here.)
Check the problem by examining the controller’s Primary and Secondary IDE settings: Device Manager - IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers - Primary or Secondary IDE Channel - Properties - Advanced Settings. Look at the Current Transfer Mode field. If it’s “PIO” then it’s a FUBAR PITA and you’ll need to uninstall the driver, reboot and let XP do its magic reinstall.
Sucky, but fixable. Now I’ve got my shiny system back shiny again.
The cpu runnign on idle at a high rate no problem…worry when tis another program doing it permatly with only basic programs running-ie: not being used for hrs! I have been having issues with mediasync running at 100% even if you try to set it to a low priority it still will run at a 100% when your not using the computer. After a while the computer makes horrible noices that I swear sounds like its burning out. The only option you get is to end the procees tree and hope that the computer will be fine.
You people using Norton and a few of these other spywear programs be carefull. Norton is very slow and takes up too much comp space. It still misses a great deal of spy wear and viruses. I even had some-one tell me they hacked in past it! I discovered a virus that will change the settings of all standard antivirus and spywear programs. They are using flaws in these programs, IE7 and in the windows frame to get in and attack the computer cashing it to crash. Nothing will pick it up either unless you really know what your doing. I’m still learning so I’m not that good! Itunes is another one they have had fun with. Spybot is on the list of malwear on microsoft bob, It too will have problems with viruses stopping it from working too.
So back to the cpu… Any help for how to fix the mediasync would be great. I fixed it before but the information seems to have been lost in cyberspace and this has only become an issue since I got crashed, curtacy of netspy. Now just to work out whats causing it to freeze with digital break up and the go blank on the screan even with sound still. Lets hope its not the graphics/video card or worse another virus… * headache*
Using XP I too have this system idle bull---- happening almost every time I log on at times up to 98% CPU useage. I do not agree with any of the solutions listed in this thread although I have not yet tryed Mooses suggestion above yet.
It also happens inadvertantly whether or not I have multiple or single tasks in operation at any one time. Its anoying as hell especially when I am trading the market, I have spoken to three IT guys on this and like auto repair mechanics all they have are trial and error approaches each time screwing something else up. The last one has screwed up my CDrom writer and in “My Computer” it now reads my media device ports all differently. My flash stick which plugs into a usb port now reads as if it is in a photo memory flash slot.
I agree with the thread creator that this is just wrong (poor programing)whatever this process is doing. It never did this on my previous PCs and operating systems.
system idle process be damned…Im goin fishin
System idle numbers or % are only relevent if you understand the meaning. In this case the meaning is reversed in the statement. If your idle is at 95% then you are only using 5% of the cpu. This in no way affects the computers ability to perform. Is surely has no bering on the game play at Pureplay. Their coding is crap. Their softare is crap and they should be charged with fraud as they promote real poker play when they allow the softare to decide who is going to win and not the player. This should be outlawed.
what happens if i terminate it? would it make my computer go faster? How possible is it that I might loose data?
I think there is a system idle issue. When monitoring programs in process explorer, the processor spends more time in system idle than in processing. It is jerking in and out with peaks and valleys occurring and no steady processing. It seems incredible to me that there are repeated spikes in the processing cycle instead of steady processing.
Disabled Automatic Updates and Indexing Service. No further problems.
There are many different problems that can cause the symptoms described above, but not all have the same probablility of occurance; i.e., there a few ‘usual suspects’. The usual suspects include applications/processes that at arbitrary times auto update themselves and/or anti-spyware/virus apps that run scans in the background. Also a badly fragmented harddrive will cause similar symptoms. Here’s what I do to minimize such symptoms, turn all virus/spyware checking off (the cure is worse than the cause, instead just don’t open questionable binary files) BUT occasionally use these apps to run scans at MY convenience. Set up my browser to ask me to ok ALL activeX controls - it’s a pita but if you don’t download activeXs from questionable sites, you won’t inadvertantly download spyware. Keep my main HD at less than 90% full and defragment it at regular intervals. Run a good registry cleaner from time to time. To disable unwanted/unneeded processes, run msconfig.exe at start up, google your procs and id those associated with anti-virus/spyware apps then disable them. If it’s an MS proc, other than auto updates, it’s probably needed. Hope this helps.
I find the system idle process really confusing. If it really is set in the lowest priority, how come it still uses 90 of my CPU even when I run some other program with higher priority?
Can someone help me with me prob.? thx
I always thought that “Scientists” e.g., SETI, use my computer to sort their mountain of data?
I disabled the automatic updates as advised above and it’s totally solved the problem.
I get System Idle CPU numbers in mid to high 90s accompanied by McShield in the mem Usaqe colum of 20,000-40,000K, during which times I pretty much can not use the computer unless I hilight and then End Process the McShield and anything else that begins Mc, I speculate this is the AOL loaded McAfee security stuff. Sometime I go paint the house or wax the car to kill time until it settles down. The real McAfee nightmare is when it scans my hardrive for viruses, I might as well go away on a few day vacation.
The idle process in the 90s seems associated with one or another Mc beginning processes at work in the many thousand K range, McShield in particular is 20,000-50,000K, only by ending every process beginning with Mc and I then allowed to hit a key and have something happen, I am at times down to painting the house, waxing the car, even a two day vacation while the computer disc whirs full speed until giving me back the right to have a keystroke actually effect the computer. I expect this is all related to the AOL McAfee security sytem. thanks AOL.
This is all goes back to 1970s modest geeky aspirations. It is a a structural failure. Ctrl Alt Del is a sop. SIP is a symptom, Windows is a hand crank not an internal combustion engine.I can google in 10 seconds on an ipod, firing up a desktop is like shovelling coal.