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Help Pleae Explain CPU Total time to me.

C

captainm27

Well-Known Member
Ok, when you check your battery status, one of the things to check your usage is Android System. It's usually below 'Cell Standby' and 'Phone Idle'. Everytime I check it, it is like 2 minutes and 30 seconds, or 3 minutes and 24 seconds, or something really low. Are you saying that my phone, which I use for hours everyday, only uses 2 minutes worth of the CPU time? I think I am missing something here. I certainly am. For some reason, this logic doesn't make sense to me. Can anyone explain this? :confused:
 
That's how long that individual app has used up processing time. Remember, things happen really quickly in a CPU, so saying that an app has used up 3 minutes of CPU time, that's a lot. Usually CPUs work on chunks of code from apps a few microseconds at a time.
 
What do you mean by individual app? I don't see an option to select how much CPU time a specific App has used.

But another thing, when I am browsing the web, and scrolling up and down, and clicking links, and get email notifications, and answer a phone, and then go back to browsing, that doesn't use hardly any CPU time at all? Isn't the phone using the CPU just for being on? Or does the CPU time status just not calculate those things?
 
captainm27 said:
What do you mean by individual app? I don't see an option to select how much CPU time a specific App has used.

But another thing, when I am browsing the web, and scrolling up and down, and clicking links, and get email notifications, and answer a phone, and then go back to browsing, that doesn't use hardly any CPU time at all? Isn't the phone using the CPU just for being on? Or does the CPU time status just not calculate those things?
Click to expand...

You need an app like System Panel or similar to show the usage of individual apps. The battery breakdown on the phone's settings are worthless IMO other than to check up vs awake times.
 
captainm27 said:
But another thing, when I am browsing the web, and scrolling up and down, and clicking links, and get email notifications, and answer a phone, and then go back to browsing, that doesn't use hardly any CPU time at all? Isn't the phone using the CPU just for being on? Or does the CPU time status just not calculate those things?
Click to expand...

The phone is not using CPU just to run. As sabrewings explained, each app will use CPU and it happens VERY quickly.

To be honest, it's really hard to explain how it works and how it's calculated, expecially if you don't already have a base understanding of software, hardware and load computing. If you really want to know the specifics, just google it.

Here's a little test for you. Go to your computer and open the task manager (use Ctrl-Alt-Del to get to it). Click on Preformance. You will see that your CPU usage is VERY low. Right now mine is jumping between 0% and 1%.

And yet, I am on my computer, looking at this forum and typing out a response. That's because CPU Usage isn't defined as the total time your phone is in use and running, it's just when a program is using the CPU, which isn't often.
 
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