Vista - 50% CPU usage at idle...help (please)

Firstly, I'd like to say hi. After reading many posts (and finding many solutions to my vista questions) I now have a question/possible problem.

At idle, I have 50% cpu usage at times. It seems to be msiexec.exe. I have absolutely no idea why. Is this a normal Vista behaviour?

Second, at startup I have 67 processes running, then it jumps to 72, then back down to 67. I had this amount on my XP pro machine, but had probably over 60 different programs installed, as it was a shared machine with CAD programs, graphic design software, etc. Now I only have vista, adobe cs3, blackberry, and office...

And for my final question, Why does eSata not able to "hot-swap"? Is this normal as well (sorry, I've always used firewire for my external drives, but now I'm trying to use eSata)

My machine specs are as follows:

Gigabyte GA-x38-DQ6
BFG 8800GT OC2 512mb
4gb Kingston HyperX 1066
Intel E8400
LG SuperMulti-Blue DVD/BD/CD/HD
Antec Sonata III case
Antec 80plus 550Watt PSU
Seagate 7200.11 HDD (three 750gb)
Vista64 Ultimate
Kaspersky A/V
CS3
Blackberry client desktop
Inventor
iTunes


Any help is greatly appreciated...

I have run 3 full-system A/V scans (and since this is a clean install with no internet downloads on this system including no mp3 downloads, etc) it has come up clean as expected...

Why would the Microsoft Installer Component be constantly active on your system? That should only be active when you're trying to install a new program, so obviously something is trying to install on your computer that you don't have any idea about.

If not, then vista also defrags constantly when idle so you don't have to run the defrag program. You might want to see if disabling the auto defragmentation helps any.

I have disk defrag set to run once a month only, so I can't see that running Windows Installer... I have tried disabling it as well, and still the same result...

Thanks for the reply though...It was worth a shot...

I looked at Symantec and there ARE several viruses that affect that file. You may want to look at it.

I see you use Kaspersky. It is kinda unstable. Runs alot in the background. It once even flagged explorer.exe as a virus. I would uninstall it and replace it with NOD32 and I would not be surprised if you CPU calms down.

The thing is, I have scanned the machine a few times (in safe mode and normal user modes) with kaspersky and online scanners and no bites.

Here's the thing about what you said above... My cpu was doing this before I installed Kaspersky... I installed Kaspersky last after installing all of my software from the CD/DVD they came on... All updates for the software were done with Kaspersky installed...

So I'm still on the phone with Microsoft tech support after almost 2 hours....lol...I'm being transfered as we speak to the third tech support technician.... We shall see what the verdict is...

So the verdict is as follows...

SP1 for Vista 64 HAS issues... If you have it, you should uninstall it if you notice strange behaviour regardless of the performance gains.

SP1 Final will be avaialble for download on March 18th...

Before installing the final, uninstall whatever SP1 version you have, even if it showed up on Windows update since that version was still technically the Beta...



Time spent on phone: 2+ hours

Problems with Vista: Continuous

Still having no answer on what the problem is after paying for tech support for a product you just bought from Microsoft less than a month ago: PRICELESS!

this is the first i have heard of this. i haven't had any problems with mine. did you really uninstall it?