Why does my windows gadgets use all my CPU?

[Element7]

Hi, this is not really a problem but more curiosity. When I activate windows gadgets it shows my cpu usage at 100% all the time. I almost can get to a single gadgets options even if i only have the clock option.

I already found a alternative to windows sidebar.. Rainbar. It uses mostly ram and about no cpu. I just want to know why windows gadgets doesnt run smooth on my system. Is it because off my cpu? Its at 2004mhz. And is it maybe that windows sidebar only uses cpu resources and Rainbar only uses ram resources?
Marc

 

[stevecn70]

Do you have any custom gadgets or just the built in ones?

 

[zigzag3143]

E7

with 1,5 gigs of ram Im sure most of that is already used and gadget have to be written to pagefile and IO takes lots of cpu cycles. what % does sidebar use in task manager?

ken

 

[harpua]

On my system, I found that certain gadgets are more CPU intensive than others. I disabled the ones that were using too much CPU and found substitutes online that operate more efficiently. Just look in Taskmanager to see which ones are hogging the CPU and eliminate those. For me, it was one of the ones that measures CPU activity and ram that was the main culprit. As I mentioned, I found another gadget that does the same thing more efficiently.

 

[Element7]

Sidebar.exe fluctuates between 90-100%. And I am only using 500 mb ram according to task manager.

 

[harpua]

It's fluctuating between 2 ~ 9 on my rig so something is not right.

I would try looking for the specific gadget processes and see if any of them are using a lot of CPU. Perhaps that would influence the sidebar.exe process.

Also, I would run the system file checker because maybe the problem is caused by some corrupt system file and this might fix it. To run SFC, from an administrative command prompt type sfc /scannow and let it complete which takes a few minutes. (There is a space between the sfc and the /.)

 

[stevecn70]

If you want to monitor CPU, RAM, Network then try these gadgets: Add Windows Vista Gadgets

They are the lowest CPU using gadgets I've found for those tasks. On my computer CPU usage is pretty much 0 all the time. I have the 8 core CPU meter running, the wired network meter running, and the HDD meter running monitoring 5 HDD's

 

[DocBrown]

Last night I had 16 gadgets & 9 IE tabs open at the same time, Yahoo & WLM IM's running, also.

42% Cpu usage, NO lag at all

 

[zigzag3143]

If you want to monitor CPU, RAM, Network then try these gadgets: Add Windows Vista Gadgets

They are the lowest CPU using gadgets I've found for those tasks. On my computer CPU usage is pretty much 0 all the time. I have the 8 core CPU meter running, the

Swired network meter running, and the HDD meter running monitoring 5 HDD's

Stevecn

You check elements sys specs? He has a single core 2800 with 1.5 gigs of ram. BTW nice link for the gadgets

ken