Relationship of CPU usage/temperature

I have an MSI motherboard, an AMD 1800XP CPU and WindowsXP. MSI provide a utility which monitors and displays various CPU functions, including temperature...their name for it is PCAlert (version 4). Included in PCAlert is a function called CoolerXP, which when invoked, dramatically lowers the CPU's temperature (by nearly 10C) but at the same time, the CPU usage (as measured by 'task manager') jumps to 100% and stays there.

First of all, I don't understand why loading up a CPU makes it run cooler (I'd have though the reverse), and secondly, I don't know why anyone would want to trade a cooler CPU for a fully utilized CPU.

I'm not very knowledgeable so this may be one of the dumber questions to hit this board....just the same, if anyone can educate me on this, I'd appreciate it.

 

This is just a shot in the dark, but I used one of those cooler things on ME and I remember a warning during installation that the CPU usage on NT systems would no longer be correct.

Are ther processes in Task Manager whose percentages add up to 100%? If so, what seems to be using the bulk of it?

 

Abraxas ... good question. Without the cooler running, and nothing else either, the CPU is idling at 1%....the PC monitoring function isn't taking any noticeable CPU resources. As soon as cooler is started, it pops up on the processes list and uses 99% of CPU. Once started however, the CPU temperature begins to drop dramatically...its already running well below the max, but cooler drops it even further.

 

It was CPU Idle that I used before. This is from their FAQ:

Q: When I start CpuIdle, the CPU usage immediately climbs to 100%- what's wrong?

A: When CpuIdle is running, it will use all otherwise idle time to keep the CPU cool, by executing the HLT command. Unfortunately Windows does not recognize the difference between normal CPU usage and CpuIdle's cooling commands that only consume otherwise "spare" time. This does not affect normal applications.

 

Thanks. Not sure I understand it completely but I'll accept it. I've sent an email to MSI asking for clarification and if they ever respond, that may confirm your point.

 

I'm not at all sure I understand it, either, but it is comforting to know that it occurs with CPUIdle, Rain, and Waterfall (and CoolXP), all of which use similar code with the HLT command, and that you aren't the only one .

You should know that there is controversy over whether these things are any use. Some say they shorten power supply lifetimes by their high-speed voltage switching, and there is the common effect of increased radio wave interference being produced, as well as many sound systems not working correctly.

But there is no doubt that they cool the CPU. I fired up CPUIdle as a result of this thread and watched my CPU temp go from 42° to 34° in less than 5 minutes, and that was with the "standard" rather than the "super" cooling that AMD CPU's are capable of.

 

But there is no doubt that they cool the CPU.

Yes, but if running even cooler than 'normal' is such a good thing, why aren't they configured to do that without tweaking tools like
CoolXP?

Let's see what MSI say, if anything....thanks for all your help.;

 

That, of course, is the question. Since as a rule-of-thumb the internal resistance of the CPU should decrease by half with every decrease of 10 degrees in temperature, one would think that it is an unalloyed good thing to lower the temp.

But, one problem I've read about with these coolers is that since Windows flushes its caches and write buffers to disk during idle time, and these coolers use idle time, the flushing never occurs, leading to data loss, especially if a crash occurs.