Idle processes high and CPU usage high at the same time

My XP SP2 laptop computer has been downloading updates for the past few
hours. It was being serviced for several weeks and I just connected it to the
outside world for the first time in three weeks.

Although the Idle process is in the high 80's the CPU usage is in the high
90's. I have turned the pc off a couple of times, and updates have
installed. When the computer reboots, the Downloads begin slowly again with
little progress. The fan is spinning continuously, so I am concerned about
overheating.

Has anyone experienced this before? Is this just backed up updates trying
to download or is there a larger issue?

Any help is appreciated!

"Kira" wrote:

> My XP SP2 laptop computer has been downloading updates for the past few
> hours. It was being serviced for several weeks and I just connected it to the
> outside world for the first time in three weeks.
>
> Although the Idle process is in the high 80's the CPU usage is in the high
> 90's. I have turned the pc off a couple of times, and updates have
> installed. When the computer reboots, the Downloads begin slowly again with
> little progress. The fan is spinning continuously, so I am concerned about
> overheating.
>
> Has anyone experienced this before? Is this just backed up updates trying
> to download or is there a larger issue?
>
> Any help is appreciated!

I am seeing similiar behavior. It first started when installed IE 7. So I
rolled it back. However, windows update installed the patch KB918899 for me
this morning, and ever since I have seen that my CPU usage is up around 80%
when the only processing using any CPU time is the idle process.

This doens't help, but maybe it narrows it down.

"Kira" wrote:

> My XP SP2 laptop computer has been downloading updates for the past few
> hours. It was being serviced for several weeks and I just connected it to the
> outside world for the first time in three weeks.
>
> Although the Idle process is in the high 80's the CPU usage is in the high
> 90's. I have turned the pc off a couple of times, and updates have
> installed. When the computer reboots, the Downloads begin slowly again with
> little progress. The fan is spinning continuously, so I am concerned about
> overheating.
>
> Has anyone experienced this before? Is this just backed up updates trying
> to download or is there a larger issue?
>
> Any help is appreciated!

"~b" <> wrote in message
news:5352CFB9-6E18-4643-B2EE-...
>I am seeing similiar behavior. It first started when installed IE 7. So I
> rolled it back. However, windows update installed the patch KB918899 for me
> this morning, and ever since I have seen that my CPU usage is up around 80%
> when the only processing using any CPU time is the idle process.


You expect that statistic to be high. In fact 80% is relatively low.
So more significant than either the System Idle Process
or the Task Manager or the Explorer processes is whatever else
you have running which is taking most of the remaining 20%.
E.g. sort your processes by CPU and select taskmgr.exe;
is there anything which is consistently appearing between it
and the System Idle Process? Then that's the one which
you should be concerned about.


HTH

Robert Aldwinckle
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