High CPU usage when idle

PJay.D · Post by **PJay.D** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:18 am

I've just bough the boxed, retail version of PI 11 to replace PI 8 which I've been using until now.

I have a strange problem in that PI11 uses between 20 and 30 percent CPU usage when completely idle (even with no images open) and I can't work out why this is. CPU usage drops to 0% when a requester is open.

It's not a huge problem but can have noticable effects when multitasking with other programs so I was wondering if there is a fix for this?

Thanks,
Paul

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 6:40 pm

This may or may not work but either way will improve your computer anyway.

Open Notepad and copy/paste the following:

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer]
"AlwaysUnloadDLL"=dword:00000001

Save as "unloaddll.reg" and then run it. This will enter the above into the Windows Registry

Steve J

PJay.D · Post by **PJay.D** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 7:40 pm

Thanks,

This does seem to have made a difference although I'm not sure how, that said the problem does seem a bit intermittent so fingers crossed.

PI11 does seem a tad processor hungry, even moving the mouse pointer of the screen with PI11 active just CPU usage of around 56% but I do only have an old 1.3Ghz Athlon Thunderbird installed.

Thanks again,
Paul

PJay.D · Post by **PJay.D** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:01 pm

Ah, no it didn't sort it, the 30+ cpu usage when idle is back again and just moving the mouse pointer around a bit can result in CPU usage in the high 90s!

I'm not sure if this is normal or not.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:11 pm

Try re-booting. Sorry cannot remember of that registry fix kicks in until you do a re-boot or not.

Steve J

PJay.D · Post by **PJay.D** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 8:19 pm

Thanks but I have rebooted and I'm still having problems with high cpu usage. I don't think that I'm unique here so it might be something that's addressed if a patch comes out.

The program's still usable but it can seem to cause slow downs when multitasking.

Thanks again for your help,

Paul

klowther · Post by **klowther** » Mon Feb 13, 2006 9:00 pm

The only time I've noticed this is when I have an object selected and the marquee (sp?) option is turned on. This can cause high cpu usage to occur. Maybe that is what is happening to you. Just a thought.

Hope that helps.

- Ken

PJay.D · Post by **PJay.D** » Fri Feb 24, 2006 8:04 pm

ULead tech. support have got back to me and said that this is perfectly normal!

dwightmccann · Post by **dwightmccann** » Fri May 12, 2006 11:00 pm

PJay.D wrote:ULead tech. support have got back to me and said that this is perfectly normal!

Surely you are kidding ... ! I've been a computer programmer for over 30 years and that's about the stupidest answer I have ever heard. There is nothing "normal" about it, unless you consider sloppy, lazy programming "normal" ... hmmmm, perhaps it is normal.

My dual processor Xeon 2.6GHz with 3GB RAM will sit at between 10 and 12 percent when nothing is happening in Iedit, but if I click Adjust and the window pops the CPU will go to zero. I think it is likely a very easy problem for them to fix but I have noticed a huge reluctance on Ulead's part to fix problems after the first tidal wave of errors ... as far as I know there had never been a second fix pack for PhotoImpack since I started using it as Version 3.

keenart · Post by **keenart** » Sat May 13, 2006 6:14 am

It is perfectly normal for PI since is retains a lot of modules in memory and is constantly Indexing.

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Sat May 13, 2006 6:48 am

Perhaps this is Windows XP Performing its idle state processing in the background.
You can force XP to perform its idle processing at a more convenient time. To do this, click on the Start menu, select Run, and enter
Rundll32.exe advapi32.dll,ProcessIdleTasks

dwightmccann · Post by **dwightmccann** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 11:50 pm

keenart wrote:It is perfectly normal for PI since is retains a lot of modules in memory and is constantly Indexing.

I have no idea what this means. It is NOT NORMAL in the sense that no program should ever use CPU when doing nothing! If it is doing nothing it doesn't need to "index", whatever that means. It may be normal if someone is doing some sort of polling wait, but that is silly in a modern operating system. Consider, when I click "Adjust" the CPU goes to zero until I do something else ... it still has all its modules in memory or whatever you propose so why wouldn't it still need to "index". I suspect it to be much more likely that someone changed the way they are using some Windows GUI API and didn't undertand how to properly use the wait/post functions.

htchien · Post by **htchien** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 2:45 am

To lower the CPU rate when PI is in idle, uncheck the following settings:

File -> Preference -> General -> PhotoImpact -> On/Off Browse Manager Cache

then restart PI.

Hope this helps.

H.T.

dwightmccann · Post by **dwightmccann** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 3:22 pm

HT, thank you again. I'll give that try. I have a coworker who runs many simultaneous applications on his computers, including PI, who has been impacted by this behavior. It would be very nice if there was a full and complete manual for PI, sigh.

htchien · Post by **htchien** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 7:07 pm

I think the user manual for both PI 10 and 11 might help.

http://www.ulead.com/pi/documents.htm

Some free third party PI on-line tutorials might also help.

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic. ... 3938#53938

Other PI tutorials in this user forum:
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewforum.php?f=29

Best regards,
H.T.