Windows 7: Horrible CPU overload and lag, severe driver lag

So, my CPU is pretty much always 100% loaded even though nothing resource-consuming is running at the time.

Windows's built in task manager shows nothing. Process Explorer only sees one svchost consuming up to 30% at the time, obviously nothing close to 100%.



The resulting lag is glaringly obvious and horrible - I can barely move my mouse, software takes up to a minute to launch and randomly hangs up on me. Audio lags and skips too.

I have immediately tried to reinstall my chipset drivers but that did nothing.

Safe mode with network support lags, regular safe mode doesn't.

DPC Latency Checker says my driver delay is up to 60 000 μsec: for comparison, anything greater than 500 is a problem.

Anyone help? I'm out of options.

The problem didn't go anywhere, but apparently svchost.exe is the resource hog.

I mean, several of those. One of the hogs is the windows themes service run via svchost which, when killed, reloads and mightactually work normally, but there are also local and network CPU-hungry svchosts.

the system takes five minutes to load too

Its nothing out of the ordinary to have multiple instances of svchost running.


Just curious, in Task Manager how many processes does it show running?
And secondly, have you done a Virus scan and a malware scan (with Malwarebytes) ?

> Its nothing out of the ordinary to have multiple instances of svchost running.

I am aware of that. What's not ordinary is svchost eating up to 86% of CPU.


Yeah, I always have avast! and malwarebytes running.

How long has it been since you had a clean reinstall? Did you follow roughly these steps to get a perfect reinstall based on thousands we've helped with here? Reinstalling Windows 7

If not you can possibly get some relief from these steps to Clean up factory bloatware.

Otherwise utilize the logs and System Resources, other tests in these troubleshooting steps to gather clues for the cause of your hangs.

I am not a big fan of instantly solving all system problems by reinstalling it, because it's a bit like cloning people with cancer and killing the original: it does nothing to address the actual issue and is unnecessarily convoluted.

svchost.exe is kind of a catch-all container for all the little processes that if shown individually would make Task Manager very hard to sort through. Maybe give this a shot?

Svchost Viewer Shows Exactly What Each svchost.exe Instance is Doing - How-To Geek

I have not used it myself, though I am about to - just to see what's running on my system.

EDIT: Looks quite useful. It describes all the little sub-components, tells you their status and how much RAM they are using, and also provides a quick way to stop them individually. It doesn't show CPU usage but you might be able to use it to spot a RAM hog or some unknown process which might have snuck in there as malware.

I did not say reinstall. I asked you how long it has been and provided several mini-tutorials to troubleshoot short of reinstall.

We deal with many users here who have never had a clean reinstall which is why I asked.