Processor too busy. HELP !

[Guest]

Got a strange effect, can anybody help me ?
The WIN-systemmonitor shows me an utilization between 30 and 80 percent when my machine does nothing beside waiting.

So I tried to check that:
I stopped all programms like virus shields, etc. and kicked everything out of the autostart and out of the registry entries "RUN" and "RUN ONCE" and started the machine. Utilization was between 0 and 4 percent. After starting a program (independent of the kind of program)and stopping it again , the utilization of the procesor does not go down, it raises somewhere between 30 and 80 percent again. But no program is active any more.
What is also strange: If I move the mouse, the utilization goes down for this time. After stopping the mouse moves, the utilization goes up again. It looks like there is a program, which is only active, if nothing is done with the machine. I checked the machine for viruses with a brand new scanner, but no virus was found.

Anybody ?



Config
ASUS CUSL2
PIII 800
512 MB RAM PC 133
Hercules Geforce I Prophet 32 MB DDR RAM
SB LIVE player 1024
Sigma DVD decoder Hollywood +
Pinnacle TV card Studio pro
Firewire PCI card
Logitech wireless mouse
HP 8210 USB R/RW-recorder

WIN 98 SE
Direct X 8.0
Actual drivers for everything

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Geeze. Funky. You really need NT or 2000. I miss those diagnostic tools every time I go home to my Win98SE machine. I don't even know if I use any diagnostic tools on my Win98SE machine... **shrug**

Do you have one heck of a freaky java-induced background? I do at work. I have a cute little fish tank java applet running on an html page with a nice picture as my background image. But even then it doesn't use any more than 5% of my CPU.

I don't see how it matters much though. I mean that is, if when you do anything the performance goes back to normal, what does it matter what it does while it's idle?

- Sanity is purely based on point-of-view.

 

[Guest]

it could be doing pointless calculations with threads that have the lowest priority, and when other programs want to use the cpu (like a mouse movement), it stops

Old addage: "Users never prosper" ) Long live the tweakers

 

[Guest]

But the question remains: What is it ?

I found some processes like DDHELP from MS Direct X and advertising threads from GOZILLA download manager, which are somehow active, but can they cause a processor utilization of 80 percent ????

Some posts below a guy with a Athlon has nearly the same prob with a telephone software. I use an external telephone hardware from the german telecom, an EUMEX 322pci. The connection from my PC to this telephone manager is always active (as SiSoft SANDRA tells me....). But this can´t be the reason, can it ??

Is anybody out there, who knows a nice tool, which shows me, which programs, processes or threads take how much of the processors power ??

Reagards
MJH


If I had finished ths sentence......

 

[Guest]

HERE IT IS: THE SOLUTION !!

The reason for this strange behaviour is the fact, that WIN 98 is not the friend of ACPI, the advanced power save functinonality of PCs.
As far as I can see, all WIN98 machines share this "feature", as long as in the BIOS ACPI is not disabled (If someone diables it in the BIOS AFTER a WIN98 installation, he will have to install WIN 98 again, or use some more or less dirty tricks to kick ACPI).

It seems to me, that the power save function costs up to 80 percent processor power. A real saving.........

Maybe one or two of you can check that with your machines, just start the system monitor and check the CPU utilization.
Would be nice to have a feedback, to see, whether I am right or not.

 

[phsstpok]

from Paul's Unofficial ABIT KT7 FAQ.

http://www.icrontic.com/faqs/kt7faq/kt7faq.htm

"System Monitor reports 25% CPU activity with no processes running!

There appears to be a bug in the Windows 98 and Windows 98SE System Monitor application which incorrectly reports CPU activity. This is probably due to it reporting the CPU cooling functionality of ACPI as CPU activity. If you use a more sophisticated tool such as the excellent <b>TaskInfo2000</b> (shareware but not crippled) you will see that whilst System Monitor reports 30% CPU activity, TaskInfo2000 reports 99.1% idle!!"

 

[Crashman]

Windows 98 has system maintenance which may be set to run when the computer is not in use as well.

Suicide is painless...........

 

[Guest]

Here are the results of the norwegian jury.....
I will say from TASKINFO. Are theses values like you have expected them, arre they o.k. ?

I also used RAMBOOSTER. RAMBOOSTER results are 30 - 80 percent CPU usage, when the processor does nothing. What is right and what is wrong ?



TASKINFO RESULTS:
Process Pane

Process % CPU LT % CPU CPU Sw/s InMem KB Total KB Th Pri Ver State Path

+ Idle 97,65% 92,75% 2:14 27 0 0 1 Idle 4,0 Idle

 

[phsstpok]

If I'm reading it right it appears good. Looks like the CPU is 97% idle.

I actually don't monitor my CPU utilization very often but when I noticed that Windows 98 System Monitor claimed 100% CPU utilization I knew something was wrong. A computer in that situation would be totally non-responsive but yet my computer was running normally. So I did a little research and found the information that I posted in my last message.

I hope we have satisfied your concerns.