even if nothing is going on with the programs ur running?

You'll have to give us more details of your situation. We're not psychic.

Nope, I guess they were only talking about virtual machines. CPU is only used when needed.

Some processes can take 100% of CPU use. I know of at least two exe files who do that (when running) on my computer.
That doesn't mean the CPU resource can't be used by another process when needed.

This is somewhat true. Windows 9x doesn't support a system idle thread therefore it used 100% CPU all the time, however this didn't make much of a difference in the temperature of the CPUs it was originally intended to run on, and on laptops it's already implemented at hardware level. Also for some reason a system idle thread is reported in Process Explorer in 98/Me, i don't know if it's true but it seems to be working. I have reasons to think it's commanded by the BIOS in my laptop though, as running CPUIdle makes absolutely no difference in idle temperatures.

On AMD Duron and Athlon CPUs there is an advanced software cooling mode which can drastically reduce the temperature of the processor - it can make the CPU up to 30 degrees cooler. This is not enabled by Win9x as it's a chipset option AMD forgot to document, and the 2k/XP system idle thread doesn't help much either. Programs like CPUIdle are able to program the chipset to turn this mode on, which greatly reduces the chip's temperature under low load.

CPUIdle is especially useful under Win98, the Percent-CPU available is displayed in the system tray and helps to decide whether the system is hung or doing something. CPUIdle v7.5.0.10 also works fine with dual-core CPUs under Win98 (I am using Pentium Dual Core E2200 & Core 2 Duo E4400).

Wait... Win98 doesn't support SMP processing therefore it has no idea about multiple processors, so it can't use dual-core CPUs either, it only uses one core. How can CPUIdle access both cores?

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: Jul 26 2008, 05:58 AM

As said, 9x does not use HLT if there are no ready threads, it instead goes into a busy loop which uses 100% CPU. The solution is to use an alternate tool which implements an idle thread which HLTs.
I use "rain". It has good performance, and is fairly simple to use. I think it doesn't support AMD cool-off though, so it would only be useful on Intel chipset, or inside VM.

I don't know how CPUIdle works with Core 2 Duo under Win98SE, but it WORKS & the system is stable. The indicated percentage of available CPU seems to be Ok.

http://www.cpuidle.de/news.php gives some info, but the version in question may not be on the download page. The right version is CpuIdle Extreme v7.5.0.10 Win9x-Me.exe 590.069 bytes modification date Jan.7, 2008 2:07:34pm

I am currently travelling in Europe & my dual-core Win98 desktop is in the US. When I am back in Sept/Oct, I will test the THG Task Assignment Manager v1.0 (freeware, made in 2004) under Win98/dual core, which allows the manual assignment of tasks to various cores. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bang-d...g-buck,815.html
My gut feeling says that you CAN use multiple cores under Win98 with this software.

This post has been edited by Multibooter: Jul 27 2008, 07:02 PM

Honestly, I think both Windows and CPUIdle are just ignoring the second core.

I tried Cpuidle, but now Speedfan marks as if I use 100% of the cpu. It's normal?

Yes, it is normal for the CPU usage to display that way. CPUIdle's cooling thread takes up the whole CPU if it's not doing anything at that moment. But it runs with lowest priority, so it doesn't affect system performance at all.

This post has been edited by Th3_uN1Qu3: Aug 4 2008, 06:03 PM

Just to clarify things, win9x on idle is not using 100% of the cpus processing power, in a majority of cases it is being misreported. Win9x has an idle thread the same as nt, the only difference is the issuing of hlts which tell the cpu to suspend @nop. The cooler programs take over from the idle thread and try to achieve the same thing, my win98 system with firewall running etc etc on idle is using 2% of the cpu.

This post has been edited by ninestein: Aug 5 2008, 04:53 AM

I vaguely remember having a similar problem some time ago in 98SE and if I'm not mistaken it was explorer.exe. I updated to the 256 color-patched version and the issue went away.

One may try FreeRAM XP Pro 1.52 (freeware), which - I believe - shows the correct CPU, system and RAM load. It's also a good RAM manager and it runs here full time. Been using it for many years, especially on older systems with limited amount of RAM (32/64MB).

Also WinTop can show detailed CPU consumption by process and there is an idle thread shown there (Win98SE).

This post has been edited by Drugwash: Aug 5 2008, 02:56 PM