Unsolved
This post is more than 5 years old
3 Posts
0
4114
May 14th, 2003 08:00
CPU at 100% usage
Hey all,
I had a question about my cpu. I donate my computer to cancer research when I'm not using it and I have noticed through my cpu monitor, that the usage is always 100% while the program is running. The same also happens when a screen saver is running.
First off, is a screen saver supposed to use that much of my cpu's power and is it bad to have your cpu at maximum usage for hours at a time. What are the long term effects. I dont mind donating my computer but I dint plan on replacing my new pentium 4 cpu anytime soon. Thanks for your responses!
No Events found!
Randall105
31 Posts
0
May 14th, 2003 11:00
It is normal for your computer to run at high CPU usage when at idle. It is not your Screensaver, but a process called, "System Idle Process."
The system idle process is what is refered to as a sentinal process. It basically gives the CPU something to do when it does not have any other processes scheduled (this allows nicer code in the scheduler, since it does not have to have special cases when there are no runable/ready processes). Also, this process can be useful from an OS cleanup point of view (looks for deadlocks, etc.)
It runs at the lowest priority, and so will get cycles when nothing else is requesting CPU attention. So if you are not doing anything, then it is perfectly normal for it to have high CPU usage.
Hope this helps, and glad to hear that people are doing good things with their compute rather than playing games etc.
hehe
Randall
Malinthas
250 Posts
0
May 14th, 2003 14:00
I'm assuming that the cancer research program you refer to is a distributes computing platform, sililar to the SETI@Home project. Basicaaly, whenever this program detects that your PC is not in use, it takes advantage of all available system resources to process data. As a result, your machine will be running pretty much at peak capacity whenever you're not using it. This activity SHOULD stop whenever you sit down to do something else.
The screen saver kicks on when you're not using the machine, so this is when it's most likely to push your PC hard. As long as you have adequate cooling, I don't think any serious harm will come to your CPU.
As an aside, which OS are you using? If it's Win2K or WINXP, you can use the task manager to see which process is using all those CPU cycles. In regards to the above post, you'll see if system idle or the cancer program is the culprit. By the way, the System Idle Process won't register on your performance graph in Task Manager, so if you're seeing big spikes there, that's not it.