System Idle Process Running Ecstatically While Computer is Far from Idle

[Legobricks]

Title says it all really... I know what the idle process is and does but it's slowing my computer when I'm running things like — as you can see in the attachment — Halo.

It's supposed to be a thread with the lowest priority, so what's it doing making everything slower? o_O


Already I'm thinking this is one of my computer problems that nobody else has. :4

 

[Bianca Paragon]

It's actually poor coding for Halo.
The Idle Process just makes up the other % not used by the currently running applications because a CPU can never be doing nothing.

 

[Legobricks]

Yes but when it actually slows my computer I start to think something's wrong... Usually it sits somewhere in low percentage of CPU usage. I'm doing nothing differently yet now it's averaging 80%.

Halo was just an example, it slows everything, even the text I'm typing here.

 

[Eureka1]

Halo is a disgustingly coded game. Try another game, if it does the same thing investigate more. If not blame Halo.

 

[Legobricks]

Halo is a disgustingly coded game. Try another game, if it does the same thing investigate more. If not blame Halo.

How many times do I need to state that was merely an example? Well, other programs/processes: Opera, WLM, XnView and even Windows Explorer.
Call of Duty 4 froze at the main menu, Dark Messiah's slow on my computer anyway (made by Ubi Soft, go figure) so I'm not even gonna try running that. No other games currently installed, but you get the idea...

CPU usage is over 41% when it'd normally be around 7% — just my usual Opera, WLM and iTunes lineup (oddly enough the only thing it hasn't slowed is iTunes). Oh and nothing caused this... upsurge in idle process CPU time. It apparently just decided today it'd go spazz. The only thing that happened recently aside from that was video acceleration crashing (though that's all working fine now).

 

[Eureka1]

Time for a format me thinks.

 

[Legobricks]

That was done about two weeks ago. :/

 

[Eureka1]

That was done about two weeks ago. :/

Was it fine before the format, or since?

 

[Legobricks]

The computer's been better since, though it worked either way, this idle process thing only just started today (it was after video acceleration crashed).

 

[Zet]

games always make my computer run slow, also end some useless processes you have running there, and get something that isn't iTunes also, also I don't know much about the system idle thing but mine is always at like 96-99 at 28k

 

[Legobricks]

games always make my computer run slow, also end some useless processes you have running there, and get something that isn't iTunes also, also I don't know much about the system idle thing but mine is always at like 96-99 at 28k

I've used enough players to know which one I like.
Ending useless processes gets boring after the first time... still, I ended what I could and as always there are no apparent good effects from doing so.

Eh, I'll run a scan while I'm out shopping tomorrow. Done. Comp's calmed down a bit since my first post, I think... though the mouse (and keyboard's response to typing), when I move it, keeps making extremely brief stops every so often (and with something so precise as a mouse, it's annoying, though still not the worst of my mouse/pointer problems).

Edit: Just in case it looks like I'm implying it, problem's not over.