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'System Idle Process'

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voidmain:
Yeah, that "System Idle Process" is a nasty virus. You need to kill that bugger off. At least make it so it doesn't use up all that processor time. You can accomplish this by running any high res video file through Windows Media Player.

iancom:
Matt,

Hopefully should shed some light on this... I don't have specific knowledge of XP, but Windows tends to behave in similar ways on most versions.

I would suspect that the _disk_ activity you're noticing during idle periods is something along the lines of Office FindFast indexing your hard disk, or the operating system re-arranging some of its components, supposedly to make them start up faster. Neither actually work in my experience, and in the case of the former you'll find it much more reliable to just disable it completely (remove FindFast from your startup folder and delete its indices from start-setting-control panel-findfast).

Most operating systems have tasks that run in idle periods, and it could be anything really, probably not anything to worry about (running Windows XP in itself is probably giving you enough to worry about already).

The "System Idle Process" that you asked about is perfectly normal - for all operating systems as far as I'm aware - although some don't explicitly list it in the task list. Basically it is exactly what it says, a system process that takes the idle processor cycles. You should find that System Idle Process % plus CPU usage % adds up to 100% (or thereabouts, due to rounding!).

Hope this answers some question, and I hope you'll have a go at a Linux distribution soon...!

Master of Reality:
i've never seen the system idle processes actually show up, saying "system idle process". Usually it shows the actual process names.

Matt:
Thanks for your feedback. I trust on what you said that these processes are normal for all OS's.

I opened up FindFast, and got a load of corrupt file rubbish. I also noticed that after 20 minutes of the system being idle, this 'system idle process' was still in the process list, and was on about 85. Geez, I guess I'm not talking sense here...but i hope you understand.

I've got a screen shot at this link:
 http://mops.netfirms.com/Images/scr_1.JPG

(X11: You posted an image on the bored, so i linked it...)

[ April 25, 2002: Message edited by: X11 ]

Calum:
seriously, you want to uninstall findfast immediately, from the "add/Remove Programs" control panel. You will never meet anybody who can give you a reason why it should be there. It installs automatically when you install M$ office, but can be disabled at installtime if you go through each component individually.

Anyway, findfast is a handy little utility for slowing down your CPU and occasionally crashing your OS. It needs to be uninstalled as soon as possible.

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