What causes a cpu to run at 100%

[kesler]

My cpu runs at 100%. It runs well. Will this hurt it?

 

[Cinders]

Your CPU is designed to run at 100% so running it at that pace shouldn't hurt it. What program are you running to make your CPU work that hard?

 

[Eddie_42]

it not entirely bad, however they do have a 'life' and working it that hard will shorten it dramatically. What CPU are you running, and like cinders asked, what are you doing that taxes it so hard?

 

[ShipMaster]

How many processes are you running?

 

[Cinders]

I think what Eddie and I are trying to figure out is does your processor run at 100% all the time. If it does you may have a malware infection or a glitch of some sort, and that would need to be taken care of to protect your privacy and financial health and/or to free up your computer to work on those programs you'd normally run. I've had computers run at 100% for months at a time with no ill effects, but I had Seti@home in place to use all of the processors free compute cycles to look for radio signals from extra terrestrials, so a processor running at 100% was normal for those computers.

 

[kesler]

It is a brand new amd a/64 le1600 am2 low wattage 45 watts. Thers are only a few programs running avgspyware zonealarm, however it was doing this before I installed them. The temps are good.

 

[kesler]

New amd athlon 64 le1600 45wtt Running 100%

New amd athlon 64 le1600 45wtt Running 100%

 

[Tedster]

read: https://www.techspot.com/vb/topic55152.html

 

[kesler]

Thanks, I will get rid of the only programs on it. It is not running slow at all.

 

[kesler]

CPU running 100% question

I went in to task manager and the only cpu usage was system, I ended it and now the cpu is fine and the only big usage running is system idle. What is the reason for this? If I do a restart I have to go in and end system again to get the cpu usage correct.

 

[Grafficks]

"System Idle" in the task manager is fine. It measures the amount % of available CPU processing power.
"System" however is actual CPU usage and slows down the machine when it has a high reading.

 

[kesler]

So where does system come from? When it is active is when my cpu shows 100% usage and when I end it my cpu usage is good.