High CPU Idle Usage

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acsdog

acsdog

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Jun 26, 2013
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After sleeping my computer several times (over the course of a day) my cpu usage will jump to 25-50% usage at idle. Task manager says it's "System Idle Process" that's hogging my cpu. This isn't normally an issue, but when I want to play demanding games, my cpu usage will go to 80-90%, which is abnormally high for an i5 3570k, not to mention an overclocked one. I disabled WinSAT, but that didn't seem to fix it. A simple restart will fix this, but I don't like turning my computer off so often (I have a remote desktop program running in the background (well, 2 actually; TeamViewer and Splashtop)). I don't think these have anything to do with it, because task manager shows relatively low usage with them.
 
Solution
Karsten75
System idle process does not "hog" a CPU - it's merely used as an indicator of available capacity.

Here's my screenshot of my CPU right now.

xt4YQL6.jpg


It tells me the busiest task in my system is CW3.exe

Look further down the list and see what's using your CPU. If you find that it increses after successive speep/wake cycles, not what tasks seem to grow in activity. Sometimes when a computer wakes up, Windows does some housekeeping and that may take some CPU cycles, but it should be in the background.
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Karsten75

Karsten75

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Oct 15, 2009
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System idle process does not "hog" a CPU - it's merely used as an indicator of available capacity.

Here's my screenshot of my CPU right now.

xt4YQL6.jpg


It tells me the busiest task in my system is CW3.exe

Look further down the list and see what's using your CPU. If you find that it increses after successive speep/wake cycles, not what tasks seem to grow in activity. Sometimes when a computer wakes up, Windows does some housekeeping and that may take some CPU cycles, but it should be in the background.
 
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Solution
acsdog

acsdog

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Jun 26, 2013
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Ok, but when the Idle usage is high, I will be playing crysis 2 and my GPU is only at 70% usage on max settings getting 60FPS, but when I shoot a wall or an explosion happens or something, the game will drop to 25 fps for a second, and my CPU usage will go to 95%. With normal usage, this doesn't happen, so it isn't running in the background. Changing task priority doesn't seem to help at all. A 780 sure as hell won't be limited by an i5 3570k's performance, and I have never had this issue before.
 
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Karsten75

Karsten75

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Oct 15, 2009
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My previous post was intended to tell you that "System Idle Process" is only acting as an indicator of free capacity in your machine and has nothing to do with CPS over-utilization. We (you) should look elsewhere.

The first thing you should do is to reboot, and then do a virus scan to make sure some Malware isn't running in your machine. Use a stand-alone scan to prevent a rootkit from hiding itself.

Use Malwarebyytes: https://www.malwarebytes.org/

and then here is a cut-and-paste of a protocol I use for anti-virus:

Aside from the fact that MBam removes it just fine 90% of the time, if you really want to scan a drive, you don't want to scan it from within the infected OS.

You need a scanner that will boot the computer without starting Windows, or you need to remove the drive ans scan it as a slave connected to a different computer.

Windows Defender Offline - http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/what-is-windows-defender-offline

AVG Rescue CD - http://www.avg.com/us-en/avg-rescue-cd-download

Avira Rescue CD - http://www.avira.com/en/download/product/avira-antivir-rescue-system/product/avira-antivir-rescue-system/product/avira-antivir-rescue-system

Kaspersky Rescue Disk - http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208282173

It is also always good to have a utility boot CD on hand that contains tool other than virus/malware removal. These are all good ones:

Hiren's Boot CD - http://www.hirensbootcd.org/download/
SystemRescue Cd - http://www.sysresccd.org/Download
Trinity Rescue Kit - http://trinityhome.org/Home/index.php?content=TRINITY_RESCUE_KIT_DOWNLOAD
Ultimate Boot CD - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html

For scanning within Windows:

Gmer - http://www.gmer.net/

Rootkit Revealer - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897445.aspx

TDSS Killer - http://support.kaspersky.com/faq/?qid=208283363

Hijack This - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/hijackthis/

Rkill - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/rkill/

Malwarebytes - http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Combofix - http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/combofix/

Linux Live CDs:

Ubuntu - http://www.ubuntu.com/download

Knoppix - http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

Also, remember to ALWAYS write a new MBR, and keep in mind that there are "infections" that no tool is going to detect or cure. For example, there is Malware that rewrites the DNS entries on the ROUTER, which causes all Google searches to be redirected. No matter how many times you scan the computer it won't detect the problem that is on the router.

 
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