CPU usage in idle

Hello,
I have question regarding CPU usage when my laptop has not have any application up and running (at least not by my request).
I have changed some of the Start Up in msconfig. Everything that I don't really need on immediate Windows start up I have not selected. That is fine.
But still absolutely randomly I will have my CPU usage going up and down from 1% to sometimes over 40% if not even more. Recently what has happened is that I left task Manager up (only, nothing else) in order to monitor CPU usage. While I was watching CPU usage was as I would say normal. 0%-7% up and down. After let say 45 minutes I got back to check again. I log on and much to my surprise I have noticed that my CPU usage in last, at least 10 minutes was constantly around 40%-50%. Strangely enough few second after I log on CPU usage has dropped down to the previous percentage.
I am talking over here about Acer 5378Z
4GB RAM
T4300 Dual Core
WD320GB 5400
Intel Graph (up to 1.8GB share memory)
Windows 7 x64 Home Premium (with latest updates)

Do you have any idea what it could be?
I also scanned computer against viruses and malware. All clear.

Hello bokiboss -

Do you have indexing enabled? Do you have antivirus program running a deep scan during idle times? Have you looking into the scheduler to see what gets triggered during idle time?

Regards,
GEWB

Thanks GEWB,

I am not sure about Anti-Virus. I will double check.
But I will definitely check Scheduler.
Also I believe I have disabled Indexing long time ago but now I am not sure whether I did only on my old laptop.
Thank you very much. I will come back with some results soon as I check this settings.

@bokiboss:

Are you using MSE Security Essentials from MS?

Which version ...v1 or v2?


Open your taskbar and look for the process called MsMpEng.exe.

It should read "0% cpu" . Now do not touch anything on the computer and x out of all programs so that nothing on the desktop is running except for the MSE and the taskbar. Wait a minute or so....do you see the MsMpEng.exe program spool up and use lots of CPU? I bet you do.

This the the MSE realtime protection scanner. It is designed to only operate when you idle your PC (if you stop using it but it is running for AT LEAST ONE MINUTE!)


I have been trying to find a way to customize this to my liking but the one way I thought you could did not work, it would always automatically revert to the default as designed by MSE.

Anyone have suggestions?

@Karl:


It is causing the high CPU with my PC, I have kept track of it and consistently the CPU is spiking between the mid 20s and 99% when the PC is idle!

Also I noticed that if you are watching a video MsMpEng.exe WILL start to function on my PC causing the video to freeze up.

For the record this was NOT a problem with v1 at all. No old Security suites on this PC either. Only when I downloaded v2 (kb2544035) did I start having problems with this.

Also I looked in the event viewer and noticed that following the install of kb2544035) v2 I noticed that I have a couple of "MpSampleSubmission" errors ID event 5000 and 5001. Never had this until I installed v2.