CPU usage jumps 10%-50% every second with nothing running

[perfb]

I see CPU usage jump 10%-50% every second on HP M8020 Vista Home
Premium with all user apps off, just running task manager, but task
manager doesnt show any process ever hitting 50%, only 2% for one or
two tasks

I used to see this on XP MCE2005 when running media center where it
would peg the CPU once a second even when not doing anything, but
afaik I have Vista Media Center off

I dont see any suspicious looking process in the task manager list,

Is this kind of CPU activity bouncing with no user apps normal for
Vista? Or should I normally see a flat line when idle?

 

[perfb]

I see CPU usage jump 10%-50% every second on HP M8020 Vista Home
Premium with all user apps off, just running task manager, but task
manager doesnt show any process ever hitting 50%, only 2% for one or
two tasks

I used to see this on XP MCE2005 when running media center where it
would peg the CPU once a second even when not doing anything, but
afaik I have Vista Media Center off

I dont see any suspicious looking process in the task manager list,

Is this kind of CPU activity bouncing with no user apps normal for
Vista? Or should I normally see a flat line when idle?

ok, I didnt have the 'show processes from all users' check box
checked, so now I can see it is APPSVCS32.EXE from Symantec that is
the culprit.

This is a new PC and I havent even enabled Symantec yet, as I am
reluctant to be continually pestered with it, but now I wonder if I
can delete it to get this CPU hogging under control, or is Symantec
too embedded in Vista to actually be fully removed? I recall having
to run some special tool in XP to get rid of Symantec as the normal
uninstall would not work.

 

[Adam Albright]

I see CPU usage jump 10%-50% every second on HP M8020 Vista Home
Premium with all user apps off, just running task manager, but task
manager doesnt show any process ever hitting 50%, only 2% for one or
two tasks

I used to see this on XP MCE2005 when running media center where it
would peg the CPU once a second even when not doing anything, but
afaik I have Vista Media Center off

I dont see any suspicious looking process in the task manager list,

Is this kind of CPU activity bouncing with no user apps normal for
Vista? Or should I normally see a flat line when idle?

Since there's been a lot of similar posts lately, just for fun, I
installed the CPU and Memory gadgets that look like tachometers and
supposedly show real time CPU and memory load.

Just watching them while nothing is running (system for all practical
purposes idle or darn close) and even during the final stages of boot
once Vista is up and running, but still not settled down, you do see
some brief spikes where these meters go up quite a bit for several
seconds. I don't think it really means much, other than showing Vista
is busy doing something behind the scenes since mine anyways quickly
return to normal which for me if the computer is doing nothing other
that me using this newsreader it shows on average about 2% CPU load
and 38% on memory. Even if I stare at it for minutes on end it never
goes much over 10% load for CPU in brief little few second spikes, and
maybe about 45% load on memory again for just a few seconds. I sure
don't see it spiking every second. Curious how this seems to vary
widely depending on system.