Good deal. Thanks for your help!

With Auto-DJ turned off MediaMonkey will play whatever you have added to the Now Playing. If you want to listen to a specific album select all songs on the album and add it to the Now Playing.

[quote="nohitter151"]I guess that adding 131,538 files to the Now Playing list is a bit excessive. Try changing your default double click action (Tools | Options | Player) to only play selected tracks only and not to add the entire list - or see if only adding a few files to Now Playing causes the same CPU usage.[/quote]

Thanks--that seems to have done the trick! I couldn't figure out how to keep the Now Playing list from re-populating with my entire library, no matter what I did.

This brings up a followup question....

So, in the former behavior, when MM was loading everything into my Now Playing list, I could use the Shuffle button to play songs randomly, or else turn off Shuffle to have MM play songs sequentially. Now that I have set the double-click action to play selected tracks only, what's the best way to play songs sequentially? Even with Auto-DJ turned off, MM plays random selections. If I want to play an entire album, do I need to make a playlist for it? Or drag it to Now Playing?

The Auto-DJ can play tracks from the whole library or from a playlist and can automatically add and delete tracks from the Now Playing. It's advisable to maintain a shorter Now Playing as this will consume less resources. As such it's better to use the Auto-DJ then add all tracks with shuffle to the Now Playing.

I guess that adding 131,538 files to the Now Playing list is a bit excessive. Try changing your default double click action (Tools | Options | Player) to only play selected tracks only and not to add the entire list - or see if only adding a few files to Now Playing causes the same CPU usage.

Most of the time, I like having MM in Artist & Album Artist view and playing my entire library randomly. It's a really big library, though (616GB, 131,538 files), and MM's adding the entire library to the Now Playing list pegs CPU usage at 100% much of the time. I keep coming back and wandering around the forum and trying various suggestions, but nothing is changing this behavior for the better.

When I open MM without the external drive connected, Task Manager shows it using 0% CPU and about 37k of RAM. As soon as I connect the drive, memory shoots up to about 130k and keeps climbing. Like the user in this post [url]http://mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=14775&p=73648&hilit=500gb+cpu#p73648[/url], for me the "Now Playing: Reading Tracks" message will be displayed. I do have the Automatically retain [x] previous tracks in Now Playing set to 0.

Embarrassing admission: I'm not completely clear on the difference between Auto-DJ and just playing tracks from the Artist & Album Artist view with Shuffle Tracks turned on. Whichever I do, though, memory usually hovers between 200k and 300k, and CPU stays pegged at 100%. Pretty soon the notebook fan spins way up and stays on max. Often, the only way to stop that is to shut down MM. Sometimes CPU usage will go back down to a reasonable level, but if I do much in MM--such as changing tags or deleting tracks, or even just clicking on a different column to sort by--it pegs all over again.

I tried this [url]http://mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28102&p=142838&hilit=cpu+100#p142838[/url]: "if you are using monkeys direct sound plugin. you need to click on its configure button. on there you will see the option to use / allow hardware acceleration. UNcheck that."

But, no improvement.

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SYSTEM INFO
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I'm using MM 3.0.4.1185 Gold.

My machine:
Dell Inspiron 9300
Win XP SP3
90GB HD
2GB RAM
GB HD
1TB External with 616GB of music (131,538 files)

Option settings that may or may not be relevant:

[General]
Priority for background tasks: Normal

[Network (Proxy & Freedb)]
Use Proxy Server: Unchecked
Query Freedb automatically (when connected): Unchecked

[Player]
Pop-up track info: Unchecked

[Volume Leveling tab]
Automatically analyze volume of unanalyzed Tracks: Unchecked

[DSP Plug-ins]
DeFX (but unchecked)

[Library]
Analyze tracks for duplicates: Unchecked

[File Monitor]
No folders designated

The scripts I have are those that came with the RegExp Find/Replace set. I don't have the last.fm one that's gotten a lot of mention here in conjunction with high CPU usage.

Many thanks for any help anyone can offer.