CPU usage on laptop

i hope i have this thread in the right section...

anyway, i just got a new laptop for college, its a hp hdx16t running vista home premium 64-bit, 4gb of ram, 500gb hdd, 3.06ghz intel core duo processor, nvidia geforce gt 130m video card...i've had it for about 2 weeks now, and one day when my laptop was simply idling on the windows desktop, i brought up the task manager and saw these stats...

my CPU usage is constantly around 10% to 15% with around 4% to 6% being used my task manager

i ususally have about 95 processes when my computer idles and it uses about 40-45% of my physical memory (ram)

my question is: is that cpu usage normal? right now running google chrome im getting jumps from 8% to 23% on my overall cpu usage

i know on my parents desktop computer (vista home premium 32-bit, intel core duo 2.66ghz, 2gb ram, 500gb hdd, 256mb ati radeon 1330) the cpu usage stays at around 0% to 5% with like 1% used for taskmanager

I think it is. Especially with 95 processes. (I usually have less then 10 under my name, and around 30 of the system, local settings, network ones) I mean it's really not that much with task manager closed it's only using around 6-11%.

On my system, according to Everest, when I'm idling my cpu usage on both cores is 0, Of course this probably just means that one or a couple of your 95 processes requires some cpu usage to keep running. It also may be that because it is a laptop is requires more cpu usage for things (like maybe the wireless internet)

Also, my cpu usage jumps when I browse the internet too, anywhere from 1% to 25% on firefox.

ya drop down those processes 95 is way too much....a good average to have would be 47-55 for vista and that way theres less processes to use the cpu

thanks guys, yea there are several programs & processes made by HP that run in the background (mediasmart, digital imaging monitor, ect.) at all times, i know i hardly ever use them so i'll just disable them on startup...i appreciate your help!