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Registered Member #152
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 03:36PM
Location: Czech Rep.
Posts: 3384
Hi all, just today I noticed that on my desktop PC, the "System" process takes up over 60MB of memory, and every few seconds the CPU usage jumps to around 20%.
The weird thing is that this exact same process on my notebook eats up exactly 60kB, which is one thousand times less, and it constantly has 0% CPU usage.
Any ideas?
I hate these weird problems that are not as much problems as annoyances, if it's not gonna get fixed in a few days I'll format my system drive and do a clean system install, because it won't get solved anyway.
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
Seems like you're not alone:
The "System" process in Task Manager accounts for CPU and memory used up by odds and ends related to the kernel and drivers. So there could be quite a few reasons for this: a virus checker gone bad, heavily fragmented disks, power or thermal management, maybe even drain on the power supply from a USB Barbecue
Registered Member #152
Joined: Sun Feb 12 2006, 03:36PM
Location: Czech Rep.
Posts: 3384
Thanks, I'll try uninstalling AVG and defragment the drives. I'm not sure about thermal and power management (there is SpeedFan to control fan speeds), but I AM sure there is no BBQ plugged in the usb
Edit: Coolness! AVG is gone as well as the problem! Thanks again.
Edit2: But it still eats the CPU.
Edit3: Reinstalled system, the same problem. But I found the cause: the WLAN card was probably trying to connect to a network and this made the CPU "spikes". If I disable it, it goes away. Still not sure how to stop the CPU loading with the card enabled.
Registered Member #260
Joined: Sun Feb 26 2006, 09:51PM
Location:
Posts: 17
Did you install the drivers for the card from their original CD? If so, check the manufacturer's website for a driver update. The problems could be attributed to a faulty driver.
Registered Member #27
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 02:20AM
Location: Hyperborea
Posts: 2058
But I found the cause: the WLAN card was probably trying to connect to a network and this made the CPU "spikes". If I disable it, it goes away. Still not sure how to stop the CPU loading with the card enabled.
This used to be a problem more than 15 years ago when people bought network cards to play Doom. Obviously the people that write drivers have not learned much since then.
The problem is that when the card generates an interrupt the driver code is entered with interrupts disabled so you don't get interrupts while handling interrupts. When the interrupts are disabled the OS can't do multitasking and any driver that spends any amount of time in the interrupt handler will cause sound to stutter and grind the whole OS to a halt.
The cure is to get an updated driver for your card or buy another card that uses drivers written by someone else. On most cards the problem goes away when the card gets a good connection to the network, that is why they don't find the problem while testing.
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XP: "System" process eats memory and CPU (now just CPU)
Thanks again.
