'System Idle Process' taking all my processor time

[Laura]

Hi,

I am using W2K on a dual processor PC to run 2 simulation
programs. I do not use this PC for anything else (no MSN,
email, or anything at all). One simulation gets 50% of the
processor resources (one entire processor). The other
simulation gets between 0 and 3%, even though both
simulations are set to be a high priority. All other
resources are allocated to 'System Idle Process'. Most of
the time, 'System Idle Process' (which I think is O/S
maintenance) is using one entire processor's resources
(2.4Gig speed) while my simulation sits there, getting
nearly 0 resources at all. It does this for hours and
hours, once in a while the second program will get 50%
resources for about 2 seconds, and then it goes back to
0-3%.

I have tried restarting my computer, adjusting priorities,
and I don't know what else to do. Does anyone know if this
is a bug in W2K? My single processor PC runs 2 programs
faster than this one! Can someone please help me? Oh, also
I should mention that these simulations are in FORTRAN so
they do not support multithreading, they run on one
processor each.

 

[Gerry Voras]

When you set the priority in task manager, do you also set the processor
affinity at the same time (which processor the program runs on)? If this
option is not available to you, then perhaps you have the wrong HAL
installed in your device manager -- you'll need to replace it with a
multiprocessor HAL.