System Idle Process - what is it?

[Xell101]

Frequently upon booting up this comes up and the task manager tells me it uses up 99% of my processor, gets my computer stuck 2/5 of the way setting itself up, what is it?

[saltfish]

Actually, it's showing what % of your processor time is doing absolutely nothing.

System Idle..



-SF

[sailor]

Its basically nothing. It is the spare cpu cycles of your machine. The higher it reads, the more that is available to other processes. When it says 99%, it means that only 1% of your processor is in use.

[yotta]

The system idle process execures HLT instructions, effectivly powering down your CPU when not in use. this makes it run signifigantly cooler.

[oberon]

yotta: Actually, it doesn't execute halt instructions. That would be bad for the OS.

But it could be executing something less disruptive that causes the CPU to run cooler for the time that the idle process runs.

Xell101, this process shouldn't be causing you any problems. I suspect it just appears to be, when something else is really causing your system to not finish booting.

[Pragma]

It probably does NOP instructions, but you'd have to check with the technical specs of the CPU.