Windows 7: New increased background CPU activity

I'm puzzled. About 3 days ago the background CPU activity on my system rose to a quite significant level that, based on all my experience over many years, I'd say is way too high, and has stayed at that level - but I've been unable to link this to any new or updated program.

What makes this particularly difficult to get to grips with is that the main alleged culprit for this high level of background activity is a basic Windows process. I use Anvir Task Manager for my monitoring, and its tray icon for CPU activity shows svchost.exe as being the main player - but ATM's detailed process list shows something cryptically called 'System Idle Process' as being the primary culprit. However, I'm aware that the problem may well not lie in Windows, because the last time I suddenly got an ongoing too-high background CPU activity (i.e. ascribed to such basic Windows processes), I resolved the problem by uninstalling Drive Sentry (which I didn't care for anyway, despite some great features).

Unfortunately I've so far not identified any new or updated program that is responsible for this change as from about 3 days ago; those that I thought might have been responsible have all now been tested by exiting or disabling them, with no clear change in the background CPU activity.

Prior to about 3 days ago, background CPU activity simply was low enough not to be showing on the ATM tray icon, but it is now typically as in the attached image - usually but not always with a bit more activity in the core that is represented on the right side of the icon.



Any ideas of anything further simple things I could do to sort this thing out? -- Many thanks.

Well firstly, System Idle Process is the CPU doing nothing. So that isn't the culprit.

Can you please Open Task Manager (CTRL-SHIFT-ESC) and click the Processes Tab. Then click "Show Processes for All Users" and click the "CPU" tag at the top, so that the highest using CPU processes are at the top. and upload a screenshot using Snipping Tool (use Start Menu Search to find it)

hello and welcome to the forums if you would like to see more details of the processors and any good detail of the operating system my suggestion is download Sysinternals Suite By Mark Russinovich Sysinternals Suite

you will find a program called Process Monitor v2.93 Process Monitor
this will show you very detailed information

Type resource monitor in start menu search. Click it to open. Click CPU tab.
Gives you a full list of processes and other info.

A good extra resource for CPU, memory, hardrive and network info.
Mike

Here's my Task Manager screen clip.

Brianzion and Hopalong X, thank you for your suggestions. I am indeed aware of Process Monitor, which I do have on my system, but generally I use Anvir Task Manager, which is a great and versatile piece of work. If you don't know it, it's really worth exploring.

that looks good to me System Idle Process means thats how much cpu you have doing nothing waiting to be used, nothing to worry about

No, I don't see it that way. Even if nothing supposedly untoward is running, that superfluous CPU activity is, apart from anything else, wasted power, and it's totally unnecessary, because I didn't have that until some 3 days ago, as I've already noted.

There will be a specific cause for that hike in background CPU activity, and I want to find that cause, and, if possible (which I'm pretty sure it would be), to squash it.

thats why i suggested looking with the process monitor because it will show every process what you are using, in your screen shot is a summary, the system idle process does not use power it is telling you how much is available what is free not being used. here are some of my processors

System Idle Process

System Idle Process - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here is a clip from Resource Monitor. Process Monitor I cannot make head or tail of for the present purpose (and I'm pretty computer-savvy!), and couldn't get a listing like the one you show, BrianZian. Indeed, Process Monitor actually ran my system out of memory, which I've never ever had happen before (necessitating a hardware reboot), so I shall not be very inclined to use it again!

The supernumerary window overlapping with the Resource Monitor display is actually my Net Meter display, which Snipper didn't manage to exclude despite my selecting the Resource Monitor window to 'snip'.