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Showing results for tags 'idle'.
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While Windows NT based operating systems use the HLT instruction while the CPU is idle, Windows 95 and 98 (and maybe Windows ME) do a busy loop instead, which tends to use more power and run hotter. There are a few programs available that are able to run HLT instructions to sleep the CPU when it is idle, and supposedly make Windows 9x run cooler. http://www.benchtest.com/cooler.html I'm wondering if anyone has experience with these programs on actual hardware, and knows if they are worth it to save power and reduce CPU temps.
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If you're using PC virtualisations such as Virtual PC, VMWare Player/Workstation, Microsoft has a tiny utility for MS-DOS called IDLE. I'm gonna tell you why you shouldn't use that utility if you have a mouse installed. It's only bytes in 128 bytes size and it's only meant to slow reduce CPU utilitisation of the first core, because DOS does not properly utilise the HLT command thus always consuming 100% of the CPU. However, when you run DOS-based programmes and have the following: 1. The IDLE driver installed. 2. A compatible mouse driver installed. 3. Move the mouse around and type random keys. The mouse acts and jumps around erratically even if you barely move the mouse! The only way to fix this is to uninstall and reload the mouse driver. To prevent this from happening, get rid of the IDLE utility and use the FreeDOS APM driver, aka FDAPM (7.3 KB) and type FDAPM ADV:REG at the command prompt. The utility takes only 928 bytes of base memory. I'm wondering if using FDAPM will have a negative effect on some DOS software or not. Thoughts?