Vista CPU usage

[cunawarit]

I spent a good while looking at Vista laptops this weekend, from cheap ones to very expensive ones. I tried many and used a couple for 20 minutes each at the store, one thing concerned me. The CPU usage was very high on all of them, many as high as 50% when idle!!!!!! This Windows XP machine is a developer machine with IIS, SQL Server, running several instances of Visual Studio and ASP.NET Development servers, about 30 Firefox tabs, Toad, Outlook, GIMP, etc, etc, etc.... All at the same time... The CPU usage when idle is 2%.

What's the deal with Vista? Just what is it doing when the machine is idle? Is it an issue? I have to say most the laptops seemed to run well and were responsive. But I wasn't doing much with them, I do wonder what they would be like if I tried to run all the normal stuff that I usually run.

Could I have some informed replies for this query please? Try to refrain from Windows is d4 sUxorz! and L!|\|uZ rUl3z type answers.

[SnTholiday]

I can't speak for laptops, but I have a PC with the Vista Home version and the CPU usage is rarely ever above 2%. What version of Vista was running on the laptop?

[fromdown]

I cant speak for laptops either but I am running Vista business at it hovers around the 1-5% CPU use

[cunawarit]

That's great to know, they were all running Home Premium. They were shop laptops that lots of people tinker with, all had lots of gadgets/widgets/thingymabobs running... That may have been the issue.

[Trebuchet]

If it's like most systems from the big manufacturers like HP or Dell, God only knows how many junk applications it had running even after a fresh reboot. I've seen them with over a dozen running programs in the system tray.

First thing after I buy a new system is take all that crap out. If I need to run Real or Acrobat Reader, I can find the icon.

[3rdalbum]

I've seen them with over a dozen running programs in the system tray.
First thing after I buy a new system is take all that crap out. If I need to run Real or Acrobat Reader, I can find the icon.

Funny, in a way. People love the idea of having all their programs in a "dock" on the bottom-middle edge of the screen, but they hate having all their programs in a "system tray" just a couple of centimetres to the right :-)

[erlyrisa]

Funny, in a way. People love the idea of having all their programs in a "dock" on the bottom-middle edge of the screen, but they hate having all their programs in a "system tray" just a couple of centimetres to the right :-)

I hate the system tray too.

A. the icons are tiny , actually using them is a pain (when the taskbar is on the top of the screen: somewhat easier)
B. Every software developer under the sun wants to put 'thier icon' in the system tray - bloating it (I often see friends computers having to go multiline on the taskbar just so that they can see thier tasks running - sadly most people don't know about changing the taskbar size and just have lot's of crap in thier tray - I am often asked - can you get rid of all that? - or - it used to hide but it doesn't anymore?)
C. Every Icon in the system tray usually represents another program or peice of malware running on your computer. - which is loaded on boot, when in most cases doesn't have to be loaded unless used. eg. many apps (especially the malware kind) install a resident program upon boot todo nothing other than to launch thier application. This little systray app usually also sports a direct connection to the company - taking note of how you use thier software ... all those messenger applications comes to mind.

D. The system tray is an archiac invention of the dos TSR (Terminate Stay Resident) days... Win3 and 2 were just GUIs ontop of dos (actually 95 is too) in the dos days you knew what you were doing by editing your Boot files to see what was running. The system tray was just an invention for all the geeks (that where doing things like changing TSR loading sequences to save on the 640K Ram section, which was a trendy thing for geeks tobe fiddling with in those days) , it falsely guised itself as 'the new TSR section' of the OS (win95) for the halfeducated. Sadly we're stuck with it, just because Msoft was trying to show off to the geeks.

E. Then there is balloon help - what a Mac rip off. Msoft would have done better to add the balloon object to the taskbar instead - at least then it could have been usefull. Adding menu capablity to the balloon help would have also prompted developers to create functions in the software the user could use : eg. ballon tip = your music has downloaded, where do you want to go today? Play Song? Download Album Art? Cancel?. The only thing Msoft added was a little X that I often miss and have to go through the process of installing my hardware.

F. it's an advertisement : software developers like to put their icon in the tray as an advert to the user : 'see what this guy is running' , and it's a constant reminder to the owner of the pc of what they have, therfore subliminally illiciting them to use an app they would have probably long forgotten about and probably un-installed the next time they visit thier control panel.

E. -because of F, it takes you away from what you are actually planning todo on your PC.

Then there is CPU usage.... Unlike a typical Linux taskbar/menubar which is a modular program that can have as little as an empty panel, Explorer instead of giving the option to just get rid of thier 'notification area' it's built into the app.

Good Application developers will never go near the system tray.

[Trebuchet]

Funny, in a way. People love the idea of having all their programs in a "dock" on the bottom-middle edge of the screen, but they hate having all their programs in a "system tray" just a couple of centimetres to the right :-)The problem is that I want to select what programs are running; not have them predetermined for me by Dell or HP. Programs in the System Tray are currently running; whereas in a Dock some are and some are not. There's no reason at all for me to have Real, Quicktime or even the volume control running in my Toolbar; I don't use Real or Quicktime and I have an actual volume knob on my Logitech 4.1 sound system.

Docks are actually pretty cool if you've got the screen real estate, although the Quick Launch bar/Toolbar combo works for me. I do wish that the icons weren't quite so diminutive since my eyes aren't what they used to be, but OTOH I don't want them too big. I much prefer an uncluttered desktop; I currently have only 12 icons on my desktop and that number will probably shrink soon. It is possible to have a "Dock" even in Windows; there's a program called StarDock (by the same guys who publish WindowBlinds) which creates a dock virtually indistinguishable from the one that comes with OS X. It even expands the icons as you mouse over them, which is tres cool.. I tried it for about a week (there's a reduced-feature free version) but decided it was using to many resources on this old machine. It'd probably be the bee's knees with a more powerful system, especially the full $20 version. I imagine there's something similar for Linux, maybe Beryl.

[erlyrisa]

I only got 2 visible desktop icons - ne ne ! :)

--a neat tip to XP users - hide your 'unused desktop icons' folder - the next time XP prompts you to clean up your desktop - you will actually go through and delete the ones you know you don't use, yet still feel comfortable that you can get the ones back that you want. (Though since it's hidden, when will you ever check)

-Yes there is an OSx style 'dock' for linux - I downloaded it once I think, and probably gave up on the install - or it was probably very slow.

[masteryurez]

I downloaded Windows Vista Ultimate about 3 days after their big release and i installed it on my computer. Vista hated my CPU because my screen was flying around every 2 sec. I hated that. I checked out what the problem was and Vista helpcenter said that I haven't installed my CPU right. So I installed my CPU driver correct and rebooted the system. Nothing happened. So i pressed ctlr+alt+del and I saw that my CPU-usage was about 10-25% in idlemode. After that i downloaded Ubuntu 6.10 Desktop and installed that instead of Vista. I'm sitting in front of that installation right now and it works well. I have a lot of programs and I mean a lot of them. I have Firefox, aMSN, Azureus and many more program runned at the same time and my CPU-usage is about 5-15 %. VISTA CAN'T BEAT THAT! :mrgreen:

I you want to know I have an AMD Sempron 32 bit 3000+

That's for me this day..

[avc302000]

I've been reading your posts and one thing anyone has mentioned yet was memory use!
For me, memory usage is as important as cpu usage!
To give you an example... I have a HP nx7400 and my first instinct was Ubuntu, It worked great in most things but there were some annoying bugs...
Due to work pressure, I was forced to install Windows XP and leave Ubuntu. The machine worked very well, at the same level as it were with Ubuntu.
The troubles arrived with Vista, that is a memory eater by nature!
In Ubuntu and XP, with skype, msn, mail editors and spreadsheet opened, memory was to 300Mb (round numbers). The same stunt in Vista costs me something about 900Mb!
Everyday I come to Ubuntu and check for updates in nx7400 users, because changing again to Ubuntu is on my head, very single day.
About the cpu usage, 0-5% in Vista. Vista Business 32-bit is the version I use!

Conclusion, I prefer XP to Vista, beauty at side!

[slimdog360]

Windows is d4 sUxorz! and L!|\|uZ rUl3z

[pupeeler]

Could I have some informed replies for this query please? Try to refrain from Windows is d4 sUxorz! and L!|\|uZ rUl3z type answers.


Oh I thought you said informal. Did you try:

1. Rebooting when they were helping someone else
2. Another store