Windows 7: >80% CPU usage at "High Performance" power option

As the title implies, my HP Pavilion dv6 running Windows 7 HomePremium 64bit goes >80% CPU usage at that option. While when I changed it to "HP Recommended" option it goes normal again.

It's not like I have a problem with the "HP Recommended" settings, but it's just wierd: just changing the screen brightness and no-sleep setting could make CPU Usage >80%?

Anyone knows why did this happen? I just got my HDD changed by warranty 1 week ago so the windows is still fresh + added MalwareBytes.

I think it's a thing to do with Intel CPUs. AMD have a technology called 'Cool & Quiet' and it means that when there's no demand for a high clock, the frequency will automatically go down. I think enabling 'High Performance' mode in the battery options since they clock cannot go anywhere, the usage will increase.
It's only from personal experience that it seems to be Intel, I've never heard of this problem from AMD CPU users. I think it's just OK to leave the power mode to 'Balanced'. This way, it won't waste power.

Madsupra is absolutely correct.

On an Intel CPU "Cool and Quiet" is called Speedstep, but it does the same thing.

Effectively by putting it to High Performance, you are disabling Speedstep and thus using more power/clock cycles because the CPU can't cycle down.

There is NO need to use High Performance, it is one of the most worst named settings ever. Balanced (or "HP Recommended" in your case, but their the same thing) will give you exactly the same performance, but will also allow the CPU to idle.

In truth, what your seeing isn't the CPU working overtime, it's the fact it can't Idle, so it's being confused, and thinking it must be working hard, and telling Windows this. WIndows doesn't "magically" know what your CPU is doing, it reports what the CPU is telling it.

In truth, it should be called "Use lots of power for no reason" not "High Performance"

Hope it helps

Hmmm, I see... Well, thanks for the explanation guys .
I'll just use "Power Saver" mode from now on

I'm a little surprised at the arguments given. The high performance power plan ramps up clock speed to the max and keeps it at max all the time irrespective of cpu load. But thats about clock speed, what does it have to do with cpu load? CPU load will vary depending on what you're doing- if you're number crunching/ photoshopping etc. it'll be high, if you're just posting in SF, it'll be slow.

Unless the OP's doing cpu intensive jobs all day, the cpu usage as seen in the task manager should come down irrespective of the power plan, once the job is over. In fact with the high performance plan, jobs should get executed more quickly so the cpu usage should be low most of the time.

I would suspect a software/driver conflict in this case, you can do some intelligent detective work or run a clean boot procedure to determine the culprits. While you're at it, also run a malware scan with malwarebytes.

So very true.

And to test this: Change your power plan, open Resource monitor and note your CPU load usage. You can also open CPU-Z to check that the processor is running at max speed, and also use Real Temp to check the loads put on the CPU. Here's a screen....



Note there is virtually no CPU load as Bill stated. You do however have the CPU running at max frequency, again, as Bill stated.