Thinkpads Forum

My T60p has been freezing up lately, and i noticed that after a reboot, i see my System Idle Process cpu # at 98-99 steadily. Seems very high. I was told that my system probabyl would freeze when running ohter programs if my idle process is almost 100 already. Thoughts?

The System Idle Process is what the name suggests. It's the process that runs when nothing else runs. So, if nothing else is running, of course, the System Idle Process is running at 99%. It's just ticking over until some other process claims the CPU.

Can you clarify "freezing up". As the previous poster mentioned, you "expect" to see "System Idle process" taking "high CPU" - this means the system is idle

However if you see "System" taking high CPU something else may be up.

I've been experiencing a wierd problem whereby the mouse would stop moving for around 1s in every 3s. I tracked it down to some device driver activity in NDIS.sys (technical details - DPC processing, debugged with RATTV3). So far I've just applied latest XP ndis.sys fixes to see if it goes away.

I was going to write up a blog on this, does the symptom bear any resemblence to yours?

To clarify...In the Windows Task Manager......under Processes,...i see System Idle Process....and under the CPU column, its showing 98-99 allmost all of the time. Is that ok?

yes

planetf1 wrote:I've been experiencing a wierd problem whereby the mouse would stop moving for around 1s in every 3s. I tracked it down to some device driver activity in NDIS.sys (technical details - DPC processing, debugged with RATTV3). So far I've just applied latest XP ndis.sys fixes to see if it goes away.

I too have been having 1-2 blue screen lockups per day due to NDIS.sys. I wish I knew what it was!

How do you know its NDIS? Mine freezes completely, so i cant check anything, nor do i get error msgs.

stephenaron wrote:How do you know its NDIS? Mine freezes completely, so i cant check anything, nor do i get error msgs.

I see blue screens that reference NDIS.sys.

ah.... THat would explain that. Mine just freezes up and i need to hold the power button down to turn it off.

What I have is neither a blue screen nor a total lockup.

The system works, but freezes for 0.5-1.0s every 2.0s or so. So not very usable.

I know it's NDIS.SYS from use of the RATTV3 tool from microsoft.

Whether the latest hotfixed fix my problem is yet to be proven.

So to repeat
- I have no *total* freezes
- I have no blue screens

.. and still getting it. It appears NDIS.SYS manages DPC for other miniport drivers, which means all my comms interfaces are now suspect
- vmware
- WECM
- Intel 3945ABG wireless
- Intel ethernet

.. Mmm. no idea how I find out which is the culprit except through trial/error

planetf1 wrote:.. and still getting it. It appears NDIS.SYS manages DPC for other miniport drivers, which means all my comms interfaces are now suspect
- vmware
- WECM
- Intel 3945ABG wireless
- Intel ethernet

.. Mmm. no idea how I find out which is the culprit except through trial/error

Thanks for keeping us posted. I've been trying things as well, and every time I think I've got a break it locks up again.

The network card/drivers on my desktop computer went bad (I know not why and I could not fix them - see my thread on rebuild (bah humbug)).

So try this with VMware: Uninstall it, reboot and re-install it. In my case, the bridge protocol would not re-install. Physical format and rebuild was the only solution. If your protocols install properly, then maybe try uninstalling / reinstalling winsock (KB 892889).
... JD Hurst

Last time I had NDIS.SYS problems it was the Norton/Symantec firewall.

It was btw. on a T41.

Great minds think alike... just removed SCF to go back to ZoneAlarm... see if that helps.