All 8 cores at 95% in use, nothing running

Windows Task manager says that System Idle is using most of the memory and it has over 175 threads created last i checked.

I am almost afraid to start a program, this cannot be good for the longevity of my CPU. I'm gonna guess this isn't completely normal. OK, I have owned desktops since the original IBM PC in 1983. It's not. :devil:

Any ideas on the subject would be appreciated.

System Idle shows you the percentage not being used...

I know, thats why I found it unusual.

Its not unusual...its perfectly normal.

Idle is "not in use"

Free to run whatever you want as much as you want.

Your 99% is available CPU.

You are really only useing 1~2% of you CPU just to power the screen and whatever programs are running.

If it looks like this ...which is ...OK ...

Yes, I understand I sound like a noob here. That's why I made the reference to the early 80's. I assure you I have more than one utility confirming my processor is seriously over-worked. While it has not overheated nor shut down itself yet (and I have attempted some programs to see if these "false readings" would go away, they have not) they all agree that my machine - with no programs started - is operating as if I had 8 CPU intensive programs running at once.

And since the machine has been in daily use since January, this is a significant change from the last several months. It has only stated doing this since I created an Ubuntu partition at the end of the C: drive. (Successfully, both Windows and Ubuntu will boot up, but Ubuntu does not show all 8 cores in constant use...)

I simply wanted to pick the brains of others who might have seen something like this before I attempt to restore my i7 to factory condition. Which I am willing to do, but would love to hear possible alternatives first.

And thanks for the responses, I understand this is not a common question.

Hi Thaumiel and welcome to the forum.
This is what my Task Manager and my Resource Monitor look like:

OK, I made a noob mistake

I was talking about what I saw in Resource monitor which I mistakenly associated with Task Manager. It was "System" which I was referring to, not "System Idle"

I have attached a screenshot. I apologize for how dumb I am.

Shut your sidebar (gadgets) down and see what happens.

whs said:

Shut your sidebar (gadgets) down and see what happens.

Click to expand...

I agree. At 68%, it is taking up WAY more than it should.

~Lordbob

No problem. I've done stuff like that loads

thaumiel said:

I apologize for how dumb I am.

Click to expand...

No need to apologise

whs said:

Shut your sidebar (gadgets) down and see what happens.

Click to expand...

It certainly looks like the result of a bad gadget.

Thanks for everyone's help. It looks to be under control now. This forum is a great example of the internet at work. I am certainly gonna spread the word.

And, by the way, I beleieve Microsoft really did it right this time with Windows 7. What a huge improvement over Vista.