Task Manager CPU Time runs double speed

[Tom Del Rosso]

Looking at my Win2k System Idle Process with the CPU Time column turned on,
the total time is about twice as long as it has been since I last booted.
The reason is apparent because the seconds increment every second, by they
count by twos. Now why would that be?

I have a dual-core AMD, so do you see this on your dual CPU systems? I've
had the dual core 6 months and just never noticed it before.

 

[Jim Howes]

Tom Del Rosso wrote:
(Question)

Looking at my Win2k System Idle Process with the CPU Time column turned on,
the total time is about twice as long as it has been since I last booted.
The reason is apparent because the seconds increment every second, by they
count by twos. Now why would that be?
(Answer)
I have a dual-core AMD, so do you see this on your dual CPU systems? I've
had the dual core 6 months and just never noticed it before.

Bingo.

 

[Colon Terminus]

Looking at my Win2k System Idle Process with the CPU Time column turned on,
the total time is about twice as long as it has been since I last booted.
The reason is apparent because the seconds increment every second, by they
count by twos. Now why would that be?

I have a dual-core AMD, so do you see this on your dual CPU systems? I've
had the dual core 6 months and just never noticed it before.

I've had dual processor systems since the release of NT 4.0 and Windows has
always behaved this way. Vista will probably have the same
problem/behaviour. Microsoft tends not to fix the little things like this so
they remain broken. No version of Windows has ever been able to calculate
the progress bar correctly for the GUI display when copying/moving very
large files. The progress bar counts down to zero then goes negative,
resulting in the display of an extremely large value in time-remaing. Just
another of the little things that Microsoft doesn't bother correcting.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

Bingo.

I thought so.

 

[Tom Del Rosso]

I've had dual processor systems since the release of NT 4.0 and
Windows has always behaved this way. Vista will probably have the same
problem/behaviour. Microsoft tends not to fix the little things like
this so they remain broken.

The percent of CPU time for a process is sometimes more than 50%. Since it
calculates the total time for all CPUs together, I assume the percentage is
alos based on the sum of all CPUs, so that means 100% of one CPU and some of
the other. At least that's consistent in a way.

No version of Windows has ever been able
to calculate the progress bar correctly for the GUI display when
copying/moving very large files. The progress bar counts down to zero
then goes negative, resulting in the display of an extremely large
value in time-remaing. Just another of the little things that
Microsoft doesn't bother correcting.

I'd be glad if they just offered more copy options than 'yes', 'no', 'yes to
all'.

 

[Jim Howes]

The percent of CPU time for a process is sometimes more than 50%. Since it
calculates the total time for all CPUs together, I assume the percentage is
alos based on the sum of all CPUs, so that means 100% of one CPU and some of
the other. At least that's consistent in a way.

There are only two ways to calculate things like that; either
A) 100% is the sum total of ALL CPU resources available, or
B) 100% is the total CPU resource on a single CPU.

In situation A, used by Windows NT, no process can clock over 100%, and a single
threaded process will rarely get above (100% / #CPUs) (the extra probably CPU
overhead caused by switching between CPU's in a busy system, or system services
being 'charged' to a process CPU time that execute in parallel with the process
itself, like I/O (although I'm not sure if that counts as 'System' CPU time)

Situation B, for what it's worth, is used in the Linux kernel. I can, with a
little tweaking, and an awful lot of noise from the fans in the current hot
weather, get my dual xeon box up to about 390% CPU load.