Welcome to the Apple Discussions Forum!
The only thing I can think of that might be causing your high CPU usage during importing, is your DMA mode is not set correctly.
What is DMA mode?
DMA (Direct memory access) mode is a high performance mode for transferring data to and from devices, in particular, to CD and DVD drive devices.
The CD/DVD devices can function in either DMA or PIO modes. DMA mode allows the processor to transfer large pieces of data with very little software overhead - therefore requiring low CPU utilization. In this mode, high speed burning/importing can be performed in background with other programs running.
PIO mode requires CPU processing for every few bytes sent to the device, so that CPU utilization becomes very high when trying to burn at high speeds.
(Platform - Windows XP)
Setting up the CD/DVD drive to operate with DMA mode
In order to verify that your drive works in DMA mode, or to change it to DMA mode, follow these steps:
Open the hardware settings dialogue box of Windows. To do this, right-click on 'My computer' and select
Properties. Then, choose the 'Hardware' tab and click on 'Device Manager'. Each CD/DVD drive is controlled by an IDE ATA/ATAPI controller. There are probably two controllers in your computer, each with two devices.
Look for the 'IDE ATA/ATAPI' controllers icon and expand it by clicking on the ➕ sign next to it.
Select either the Primary or secondary IDE channel, which controls your CD/DVD drive, right click on it and select
Properties.
Go to the 'Advanced settings' tab, and the device that you want to set (Device 0 or Device 1). If the Transfer Mode says 'PIO only' for either Device 0 and/or Device 1 you should modify this to 'DMA if available' mode, to let Windows select DMA mode if it is supported by your drive (it usually is).
* The Current Transfer Mode should say something like 'Ultra DMA Mode 5'. Then, click OK. Windows will ask you if you want to reboot for these settings to take effect. You should allow it.
*If the DMA mode is grayed out, select Cancel and you should be back at Device Manager screen. Make sure the Primary or secondary IDE channel is selected (whichever was showing 'PIO only') and press the Delete button on your keyboard. You'll be asked if you're sure you want to uninstall that device.
Select Yes. When you reboot the PC, Windows XP will automatically detect the device you just uninstalled and reinstall it. Follow the steps above again and you should find that Windows
WILL allow you to amend the setting to 'DMA if available'.
After changing these settings the CD/DVD drive should work much faster and consume much less CPU power.
Let me know if this cures your problem.
One other thought - If you have anti-virus software scanning your pc while you're trying to import music into iTunes, this will slow importing down.
