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What is SYSTEM IDLE PROCESS
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System Idle Process is a way for windows to record the amount of CPU idle time. It shouldn't be slowing the system down in anyway. Ideally, unless you are doing something CPU intensive, this should be at a high CPU percentage.
DeadlySmurf
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ho dear
when that is in use it means that your CPU is not using that % of its capability. it will not slow your computer down at all it dose nothing its just a way of telling you that it is doing nothing
when that is in use it means that your CPU is not using that % of its capability. it will not slow your computer down at all it dose nothing its just a way of telling you that it is doing nothing
Yep.
Its an indication that some bit of badly written software is waiting for something to happen and not letting anything else at the cpu. Possibly something timing out on an attached device or a netwrork connection.
What else is running? What takes up the cpu time before and after this?
Its an indication that some bit of badly written software is waiting for something to happen and not letting anything else at the cpu. Possibly something timing out on an attached device or a netwrork connection.
What else is running? What takes up the cpu time before and after this?
Sorry but that's pap!
System idle process is simply that, a process which indicates the % idle of the cpu at any instant in time. Other than being able to poll it to see what the current utilisation is it has absolutely nothing to do with any other process on the machine. The benefit of SIP is that it's used to run cpu power saving schemes. So in effect all it's doing is stopping your CPU from spinning its wheels whilst the machine isn't busy.
It also has the lowest possible priority so the chances of it conflicting with anything are zero!
If you want more information about what your CPU is doing use Perfmon from the "run" dialogue.
2blue4u
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have to agree, it has absolutely nothing to do whatsoever in slowing down your PC. It is no more than a measure of how much cpu resource is available - or not as the case may be.
You have probably pointed the finger at the only thing in the entire operating system that could never cause a problem.
You have probably pointed the finger at the only thing in the entire operating system that could never cause a problem.
Well I beg to differ. I deliberately didn't say anything explicit about the idle process and I certainly didn't suggest that it conflicts with anything.
If you have a cpu with a run queue consisting of processes which ought to be doing something and yet the cpu utilisation is very low, then the reason has to be that those processes in the runqueue are stalled for some reason.
Typically this is because they are waiting on a response from a device call of some sort.
Its one thing if a specific application fails to respond while waiting on a timeout (although you could argue that it should have better threading), but if the entire machine seems to be stalling then that implies that something is hogging an essential resource which prevents other threads/processes from doing anything. It may be that the whole system is stalled or it may be only the gui that has problems, you'd need to investigate further to clarify that. However I would call any app (or OS or GUI) which does that badly written and I would say that it is preventing other processes from making use of the cpu. The fact that the idle is 99% and you have a substantive runqueue tells you that something is wrong. Of course the problem might not be the main app that the user is running - especially if the problem is not easily reproducible.
I've frequently seen massive performance improvements by changing the way that an application handles system calls which might block or altering the way that forks occur or changing the IPC mechanisms.
But I've only done performance tuning on large systems.
Ummmmmm....
Which is quite clearly wrong.
The problem here is the nomenclature used with regards to SIP. Yes the system could be stalled due to thread loss or disk queuing etc* but the fact is that SIP is not the cause, as per:
You would need to use perfmon or similar to find the root cause of the problem.
*Hell, it could even be malware but it seems I'm not allowed to mention such things!
and then
Which is quite clearly wrong.
The problem here is the nomenclature used with regards to SIP. Yes the system could be stalled due to thread loss or disk queuing etc* but the fact is that SIP is not the cause, as per:
You would need to use perfmon or similar to find the root cause of the problem.
*Hell, it could even be malware but it seems I'm not allowed to mention such things!
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why not? lol
ekimeno
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Thanks for the help folks - I think I have got the drift. Best I go and buy a Mac instead.........
Yes. :|
Nice partial quotes there Nathan ;-)
From which I understand that the OP wants to know why his machine seems to be doing nothing when it should be doing lots.
Several people before me had already explained perfectly well what the idle process is. I agreed with them and offered likely reasons for the OP's performance issue. I said nothing about the idle process and I did not say that the idle process was causing conflicts. Why you seem determined to tell me that I did I don't know. But I maintain that if you have a system with a pool of processes that ought to be doing something and you see an apparent system stall and 99% idle then something is blocking something critical. Otherwise those processes would be hitting the cpu. The fact that they are not says to me that there is some shoddy code somewhere (and being windows thats quite likely isnt it.)
But I'm sure you're right - I know nothing
Bob seems to have got the right idea, anyway.
Now 'scuse me, I have to ring ibm, oracle, siemens, etc, etc and tell them to pull all the tuning stuff I did for them.
From which I understand that the OP wants to know why his machine seems to be doing nothing when it should be doing lots.
Several people before me had already explained perfectly well what the idle process is. I agreed with them and offered likely reasons for the OP's performance issue. I said nothing about the idle process and I did not say that the idle process was causing conflicts. Why you seem determined to tell me that I did I don't know. But I maintain that if you have a system with a pool of processes that ought to be doing something and you see an apparent system stall and 99% idle then something is blocking something critical. Otherwise those processes would be hitting the cpu. The fact that they are not says to me that there is some shoddy code somewhere (and being windows thats quite likely isnt it.)
But I'm sure you're right - I know nothing
Bob seems to have got the right idea, anyway.
Now 'scuse me, I have to ring ibm, oracle, siemens, etc, etc and tell them to pull all the tuning stuff I did for them.
OK, I'll "partially" quote again:
The fact is the answer to this is YOU CAN'T and it's not the real issue.
I'm not challenging anything you said other than it's not in context with what the OP originally asked.
I agree that there's a further issue but I also suggest you reread post #1! Is SIP the issue and will getting rid of it help speed up the machine?
The fact is the answer to this is YOU CAN'T and it's not the real issue.
I'm not challenging anything you said other than it's not in context with what the OP originally asked.
I agree that there's a further issue but I also suggest you reread post #1! Is SIP the issue and will getting rid of it help speed up the machine?