Yes... In Vista, Defragment and other maintenance is done while your PC and
CPU is idle... That's perfectly ok! It actually gives up the processing
power when you run any program...

Emil Lulic

"Paul Lady" <pjl@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:538E4D38-488C-4A04-93F2-7C1A470D37EE@microsoft.com...
> Is it normal for Vista to use about half of the CPU when no apps are
> running?
>
> I have a 6 month old Dell that has started to show about half the cpu
> consumed my the stuff that I have no control over that I can find. Task
> manager doubles the list of processes when I check "show all users" at the
> bottom with some user called SYSTEM that I can't control. SYSTEM is the
> culprit, and I can't turn anything off.
>
> Anybody understand what to do? I have checked the web and all I find is
> registry cleaners that want money to deliver an unspecified solution.
>
> TIA, pjl