Both Dual Cores Running at 50% at idle

[jcbray]

look and see what processes are taking your cpu time....

[n8op8o]

look and see what processes are taking your cpu time....

Maya is taking up ~50
System Idle Process is taking up the rest (~50)

Just a few more notes of what i've done so far. When i first built the system i installed WinXP64. and i was having the same results. Since then i've reformatted and reinstalled with the regular WinXP

-Thx

[SatoriGFX]

XSI does the same on my X2 system.

[Calle]

I've got the same thing. It disapears if you create an object (or load a scene) and rotate the camera. A bit strange though. :)

[n8op8o]

I've got the same thing. It disapears if you create an object (or load a scene) and rotate the camera. A bit strange though. :)

Hehe. That is interesting. It does the same thing on my system. I just haven't spent enough time working in it.. I saw the CPU's and decided to try and fix it first. Thanks for the help.

I still find it odd how combustion is runningat 50% usage just like maya did. Any other thoughts?

[deathman20]

Do you have Cool & Quiet drivers installed? Those have been known to cause some strange issues.

[n8op8o]

Do you have Cool & Quiet drivers installed? Those have been known to cause some strange issues.

Cool and quiet is disabled.. both cores show that they are running a 2.2Ghz

[DaForce]

I have never had that problem. But im a max'er :-)

I suggest you download the AMD driver for the X2
"AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2"
from here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

THe only time both cores run at 50% is when a program is only a single threaded program it will show up as 50% cpu usage. But even then it will only show that cpu usage if the cpu's are actually being used.
If you open maya, max... whatever, it shouldnt have be using more than 1-2%cpu unless your rendering..modelling...etc.. if the program is just sitting idle open then it should take basically no cpu at all.

[n8op8o]

I have never had that problem. But im a max'er :-)

I suggest you download the AMD driver for the X2
"AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2"
from here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

THe only time both cores run at 50% is when a program is only a single threaded program it will show up as 50% cpu usage. But even then it will only show that cpu usage if the cpu's are actually being used.
If you open maya, max... whatever, it shouldnt have be using more than 1-2%cpu unless your rendering..modelling...etc.. if the program is just sitting idle open then it should take basically no cpu at all.

Thanks for the tip... I updated the drivers from the site above when i installed WinXP (SP2). cores are still running at 50% CPU at idle. could this be a problem with the bios or something like that ?

My MOBO is an Asus A8N-E i already flashed it to the latest version on asus's website.

It seems odd. because i only see this type of an effect with programs that should be SMP optimized. isn't combustion SMP optimized? If i set the affinity of the app to just one core.. then that core goes up to 100% at idle.

[n8op8o]

I have never had that problem. But im a max'er :-)

I suggest you download the AMD driver for the X2
"AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2"
from here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

THe only time both cores run at 50% is when a program is only a single threaded program it will show up as 50% cpu usage. But even then it will only show that cpu usage if the cpu's are actually being used.
If you open maya, max... whatever, it shouldnt have be using more than 1-2%cpu unless your rendering..modelling...etc.. if the program is just sitting idle open then it should take basically no cpu at all.

Thanks for the tip... I updated the drivers from the site above when i installed WinXP (SP2). cores are still running at 50% CPU at idle. could this be a problem with the bios or something like that ?

My MOBO is an Asus A8N-E i already flashed it to the latest version on asus's website.

It seems odd. because i only see this type of an effect with programs that should be SMP optimized. isn't combustion SMP optimized? If i set the affinity of the app to just one core.. then that core goes up to 100% at idle.

[n8op8o]

I have never had that problem. But im a max'er :-)

I suggest you download the AMD driver for the X2
"AMD Athlon™ 64 Processor Driver for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Version (exe) 1.2.2.2"
from here http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/TechnicalResources/0,,30_182_871_9706,00.html

THe only time both cores run at 50% is when a program is only a single threaded program it will show up as 50% cpu usage. But even then it will only show that cpu usage if the cpu's are actually being used.
If you open maya, max... whatever, it shouldnt have be using more than 1-2%cpu unless your rendering..modelling...etc.. if the program is just sitting idle open then it should take basically no cpu at all.

Thanks for the tip... I updated the drivers from the site above when i installed WinXP (SP2). cores are still running at 50% CPU at idle. could this be a problem with the bios or something like that ?

My MOBO is an Asus A8N-E i already flashed it to the latest version on asus's website.

It seems odd. because i only see this type of an effect with programs that should be SMP optimized. isn't combustion SMP optimized? If i set the affinity of the app to just one core.. then that core goes up to 100% at idle.

[DaForce]

haha mega triple post!! nice one.

Yeah no matter if the program is SMP enabled or not, if your programs are just open and not doing anything, then the system idle process should be taking up around 99% and the programs themselves around 1-2% (give or take)

So your situation is rather odd I must say.
Of course when you load up the program... rendering, video processing... whatever then the total cpu usage should hit around 50% for a non-SMP enable program and 100% for a SMP enabled program.

So not sure whats up with yours.

[prixatw]

Its probably a stupid question, but did you switch off that ridiculous file indexing after the re-install?

[n8op8o]

Its probably a stupid question, but did you switch off that ridiculous file indexing after the re-install?

Thanks for the idea. I turned off indexing. But everything is still acting the same

-thx

[DaForce]

Just a thought, maybe this will help.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256

and the patch :-)
http://static.hardwareluxx.de:443/hardware/andreas/Software/WindowsXP-KB896256-v3-x86-ENU.exe

[n8op8o]

Just a thought, maybe this will help.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=896256

and the patch :-)
http://static.hardwareluxx.de:443/hardware/andreas/Software/WindowsXP-KB896256-v3-x86-ENU.exe

Thx for the info..

Combustion is still running the same.

It has to be some sort of software / driver realted bug. All my other apps are working great.

If i find out more info in the future i'll post a reply.

if you have any other ideas i would appreciate them.

thx again.

[Kuroyume0161]

This seems to slowly becoming pandemic.

In my case, I can assure you that my problem is not hardware, but driver related - it did not exist until a couple days ago. Since I do plugin development for Cinema 4D, I run it alot to test while having the TaskManager visible. Not until after this last Friday, when I updated my nVidia drivers from 77.13 to 81.85 did I notice that it was running my dual Xeons (and HT) at 50% continuously.

With a hunch, I tried other 3D apps only to find the same situation. One older version of Cinema 4D that I tried had Software Shading set (instead of OpenGL) and it ran at the expected 0% when idle.

Therefore, new nVidia drivers + OpenGL = continuous CPU Usage. A complete reinstall of the 81.85 (using DriverCleanerPro) had no effect. No settings have changed it (except going to software shading mode). I'm just about to remove these drivers and go back to 77.13 or update just to 78.03. It appears that it may only be affected dual-processors/dual-cores, but with so little information it is just a guess.

I'd say, if you do 3D CG and use nVidia GeForce video cards, stay away from these latest drivers!

Robert

[n8op8o]

This seems to slowly becoming pandemic.

In my case, I can assure you that my problem is not hardware, but driver related - it did not exist until a couple days ago. Since I do plugin development for Cinema 4D, I run it alot to test while having the TaskManager visible. Not until after this last Friday, when I updated my nVidia drivers from 77.13 to 81.85 did I notice that it was running my dual Xeons (and HT) at 50% continuously.

With a hunch, I tried other 3D apps only to find the same situation. One older version of Cinema 4D that I tried had Software Shading set (instead of OpenGL) and it ran at the expected 0% when idle.

Therefore, new nVidia drivers + OpenGL = continuous CPU Usage. A complete reinstall of the 81.85 (using DriverCleanerPro) had no effect. No settings have changed it (except going to software shading mode). I'm just about to remove these drivers and go back to 77.13 or update just to 78.03. It appears that it may only be affected dual-processors/dual-cores, but with so little information it is just a guess.

I'd say, if you do 3D CG and use nVidia GeForce video cards, stay away from these latest drivers!

Robert

That makes sense. i run 3dsMAX in D3D and it runs fine. maya goes to 50% until i change the view ports around. and combustion is always at 50%.

I am currently running with the latest drivers which are the 81.85 version. On nVidias web site they say "Performance enhancements for dual-core CPUs." in the 81.85 version i think these new enhancements might have introduced new bugs.

I am going to revert back to an older driver in a few days and will post any results i find

-------------------------------
Nate-O

[DaForce]

I am using the older 78.03?? drivers and arnt experiencing the problems you guys have.
So I might try updating to the latest and see if i get the same problem.

cause max and combustion all work fine so I will see what happens after the driver update.

[lots]

Nvidia's 80 series drivers introduced multithreading. Perhaps some issues came up with the new threading drivers.

I dont have dual core, but I do have dual Opterons, and I can say that with the 80 series drivers I have not experienced this problem.

[n8op8o]

Sorry for the long delay in getting back about this. It's been a crazy the last few weeks.

I did some more research and found out that this problem is related to the nvidia drivers. There are a lot of people having this problem trying to run openGL apps and taking up a large amount of CPU time.

So installed the 78.01 drivers and everything is working great once again. combustion is back to normal and all my apps that use openGL are running great.

Thanks for all the great help on this forum. Everyone was very helpful.

[DaForce]

hehe yeah sorry i should have posted that along time ago... kinda forgot.

Yeah the latest drivers are infact the problem as you found out. Reverting to the older ones fixes it for the time being.. also as you found out.


Another point I will add is that i recently had been experimenting with After Effects and noticed that no matter what Nvidia drivers i used i still have 50% CPU usage. I resolved the problem by applying the 6.5.1 patch :D

:thumbsup:

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