[vipergtsr]

a process called "system" uses 99% of my CPU usage, and i need to know how to fix it cause i couldn't, if someone knows how to fix it please tell me!!!!!!

I've cleaned all spyware, adware, trojans, worms, and viruses.

I was infected with one worm, and i had to format my hard drive, but somehow the worm was still in my hard drive after formating my hard drive for 5 times (3 in a row); i'm afraid that it might still be there.

If you need this inf about my pc:
Pentium IV 2.4GHs 512 SDRAM
120Gb Hard drive
64Mb Geforce 4
Windows XP Home Edition

[thatsteveguy]

If you mean the 'system idle process' DON"T PANIC.
it's normal. that is just where the resources are used when you aren't doing anything on your computer (easy explanation)

S

[adamvjackson]

<slightly-offtopic>

Sysinternals has some great monitoring software, such as Diskmon, Filemon, Regmon, and as you mentioned, Process Explorer.

Also, I really like the AccessEnum and ShareEnum tools to quickly audit permissions.

If you haven't checked those two tools out, you should.

Anyway, cheers

</slightly-offtopic>

[I12BPhil]

First, open your services list. (It's in 'Computer Management' under 'Control Panels' - classic view) Do a ctrl+alt+delete and open the Task Manager and switch to the tab that monitors CPU and network usage. Stop each running service one at a time (starting them again after your done testing each one) until you find the service eating up all the clock cycles.

DO NOT alter the properties for a service unless you know which service is causing the problem. Stopping or disabling the RPC service in XP will make your system unusable!!

I just went through this problem on 2 systems and both times it was the spooler service (spoolsv.exe) even though the task manager reported 'system.exe' was eating up the CPU. There was a huge file in one of the printers which I deleted and then the system was fine. I had just cleaned some viruses, so chances are it was put there by one of them.

[wannabeageek]

If your using 99% of your processes, you didn't by chance download and run any protein folding programs, such as folding@ home, did you? That will run your processor at 100% all the time. Its a great benifit to help out with cancer research, and other illnesses, but I would recomend instaliing it on an old box you don't use for everyday service.

[teqguy]

You guys are straying off topic...


The technical explanation for System Idle Process is that it IS using 99% to 100% of the CPU quanta, but it's not doing what you think.

Instead of acting like a normal application or service and making use of the CPU's co-processor or any mathematical fundamentals of the processor, it only does one thing:

HALT, HALT, HALT, HALT, HALT... well you get the idea.

The halt command is known by all processor architectures and is included in the primary instruction set. It functions as a method of making the processor less than idle, stopped entirely... but still active and available. As soon as it's issued a command other than HALT, it becomes functional.

Halting the processor reduces temperatures significantly, extending the life and stability of the processor where it's needed most- servers. Desktop users might benefit from better overclocking when comparable to a 95/98/Me/NT4/NT5 system, but other than that it's just 20Kb of ram you will never miss.

The same principles can be found in software such as Waterfall and CPUIdle, but it seems Microsoft never leaves a stone unturned to integrating and thereby nullifying third party utilities.

[Byzantium]

I had the same problem. I believe he is talking about system.exe not idle system. From reading other forums I found many different causes the most obvious was worms or Trojans but on clean machines this was still occurring on win2k and winXP machines.
The cause I think applies here is spybot S&D. If you have block known bad sites checked it fills the HOSTS file with extra 127. entries. Over time this massively lags the system and leads to the system.exe using 90+% of your cpu.
For me it was a local printer that had run out of ink. I turned it off and watched my CPU usage drop from 99 to 0. That was a beautiful thing I assure you.
Other causes ranges from jumper setting on HD's if you have multiple HD's, needing to disable NetBIOS in TCP/IP, and even antivirus checking emails with a firewall set.
Each of these things only shows up as system.exe eating 90+ of your cpu. None of the other process or running programs appear to be taking any more than normal resources.