Explorer.exe taking up 15-30% CPU usage when moving mou

[H2SO4]

They really say patience is a virtue...

May the force be with you H2SO4...

Hey, I learned something from that.

From now on I'll have to add "are you undervolting?" to my repertoire of First Exclude The Obvious Hardware Abuse questions

 

[kevindd992002]

Yeah, but even before using RMClock, I still experience the mouse problem.

And I'm wondering why in my Vista computers, that doesn't happen?

What would be the solution to get rid of the mouse movement CPU usage?

And I will be losing the ability to undervolt? It's just that it lowers temps by a notch

 

[H2SO4]

Yeah, but even before using RMClock, I still experience the mouse problem.

Put it back on and see what happens. If the high mouse proc util returns... it's obvious.

And I'm wondering why in my Vista computers, that doesn't happen?

It doesn't happen on my Win7 machines either, but then that doesn't really matter. It would certainly be wrong to link the colour of the case to whether the problem occurs or not ("mine is silver, yours is beige, therefore that must be the difference"), so it's best not to speculate about why something does or doesn't occur under a completely different installation.

What would be the solution to get rid of the mouse movement CPU usage?

Given that your "mouse" utilisation is now averaging under 10%, I'd say you already found your solution. Remember that it used to be 30%. :shock:

And I will be losing the ability to undervolt? It's just that it lowers temps by a notch

Setting the thing to run at 233MHz would also lower temps by several notches. It is, of course, up to you how much you want to experiment with the hardware in order to eke out some supposed temperature or battery life improvements. Personally, I advise people to run their hardware within its design spec.

 

[kevindd992002]

Ok I still want to reformat this and see if the problem goes away. Thank you very much!

 

[H2SO4]

Ok I still want to reformat this and see if the problem goes away. Thank you very much!

If I understand correctly, what you're saying is that you're going to attempt to get RMclock/undervolting happening while at the same time keeping the "mouse" type of processor utilisation at 10% or less?

All the best, and thanks for an interesting journey

 

[kevindd992002]

Nah. I can do without the undervolting but I really don't want the "mouse" utilization to take a considerable chunk for the CPU usage.

Why do you think the mouse movement does make the explorer.exe make CPU usage up?

 

[H2SO4]

Nah. I can do without the undervolting but I really don't want the "mouse" utilization to take a considerable chunk for the CPU usage.

Why do you think the mouse movement does make the explorer.exe make CPU usage up?

You're confusing me now.

The latest xperf run shows your explorer.exe utilisation at or slightly below 10% during a very sustained mouse wriggling session. Given that it came down from ~30% when you removed RMclock/undervolting, and that stopping the desktop animation also removed the "10sec" spike", what is it that you're trying to achieve now? (Substantially) Less than 10% during sustained mouse movement? That may not be practical, given the finite nature of the hardware resources.

By lowering mouse DPI it's conceivable that you might squeeze a few more percentage points out of it, but that's really too whacky for most purposes.

EDIT: Hold on a tick.... I just realised something

 

[kevindd992002]

Ok, lol. Well my aim now is just to be similar to your machines where the mouse movement DOESN'T add anything to the CPU usage.

 

[logicearth]

mouse movement DOESN'T add anything to the CPU usage.

Mouse movement always adds to CPU usage...how else do you think the computer will know where the mouse is if the CPU doesn't calculate it?

Btw you do not need to undervolt your processor. Windows is able to that by using Intel's Speedstep. Go into Power Management > Advance.

 

[kevindd992002]

mouse movement DOESN'T add anything to the CPU usage.

Mouse movement always adds to CPU usage...how else do you think the computer will know where the mouse is if the CPU doesn't calculate it?

Btw you do not need to undervolt your processor. Windows is able to that by using Intel's Speedstep. Go into Power Management > Advance.

Yes, but just about 1%. My friend has Windows 7 also, he has three/four programs opened and his CPU usage is 0%.

 

[H2SO4]

EDIT: Hold on a tick.... I just realised something

Try these steps please and tell me what you see:

0) Fire up task manager and sort by the (badly named) "CPU" column under the processes tab. Put the task manager window somewhere out of the way on your monitor. Exit all apps, all windows, so that the task manager is the only thing on your task bar and you're looking at your (non-animated) desktop.

1) Move the mouse around on the desktop without going over the TM window - what process is consuming processor time?

2) Now start an Explorer window and go into a folder with lotsa little files. Move the pointer around over the files so the blue highlight bar moves under the pointer. What process is eating processor time?

3) Close the explorer window and open a browser instance - IE or FF. Go to a busy page with lots of elements on it. Don't click anything, just move the mouse around within that window. What process is eating processor?

It just struck me (before writing this response) that you really shouldn't be seeing explorer.exe as being responsible unless you're moving your mouse over an explorer window.

Can you confirm what happens on your machine during the steps above?

 

[kevindd992002]

mouse movement DOESN'T add anything to the CPU usage.

Mouse movement always adds to CPU usage...how else do you think the computer will know where the mouse is if the CPU doesn't calculate it?

Btw you do not need to undervolt your processor. Windows is able to that by using Intel's Speedstep. Go into Power Management > Advance.

Intel's Speedstep throttles the CPU's FREQUENCY not the voltage.

 

[kevindd992002]

EDIT: Hold on a tick.... I just realised something

Try these steps please and tell me what you see:

0) Fire up task manager and sort by the (badly named) "CPU" column under the processes tab. Put the task manager window somewhere out of the way on your monitor. Exit all apps, all windows, so that the task manager is the only thing on your task bar and you're looking at your (non-animated) desktop.

1) Move the mouse around on the desktop without going over the TM window - what process is consuming processor time?

2) Now start an Explorer window and go into a folder with lotsa little files. Move the pointer around over the files so the blue highlight bar moves under the pointer. What process is eating processor time?

3) Close the explorer window and open a browser instance - IE or FF. Go to a busy page with lots of elements on it. Don't click anything, just move the mouse around within that window. What process is eating processor?

It just struck me (before writing this response) that you really shouldn't be seeing explorer.exe as being responsible unless you're moving your mouse over an explorer window.

Can you confirm what happens on your machine during the steps above?

Answers:

1) explorer.exe is averaging at 10% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

2) explorer.exe is averaging at 7% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

3) iexplore.exe is averaging at 40% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

 

[H2SO4]

Answers:

1) explorer.exe is averaging at 10% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

2) explorer.exe is averaging at 7% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

3) iexplore.exe is averaging at 40% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

(2) is normal, (1) is borderline, and (3) seems somewhat excessive - my IE does ~20% on a relatively busy page (www.smh.com.au).

At least it shows that your issue is not specific to explorer.exe. Any process whose window(s) is being pelted with WM_MOUSEMOVE messages will consume processor time to deal with the mouse movement in whatever way it sees fit.

What surprises me is that I cannot spot evidence of 3rd-party code or driver interference in your ETLs. Virtually all of that activity is in user-mode, and it's all expected and necessary: sending window messages, invoking window procedures, checking the owner of a particular rectangle... It's just that it all happens slower than it should, given your specs.

Obviously something improved around the time you removed RMclock because the utilisation dropped so drastically. If you're still encountering an unequivocal improvement when running in safe mode, I'd suggest a little basic safe mode troubleshooting:

Fire up MSCONFIG, choose a "diagnostic" startup, reboot... any improvement?

 

[kevindd992002]

Answers:

1) explorer.exe is averaging at 10% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

2) explorer.exe is averaging at 7% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

3) iexplore.exe is averaging at 40% and as soon as I stop moving the mouse it drops to 0%.

(2) is normal, (1) is borderline, and (3) seems somewhat excessive - my IE does ~20% on a relatively busy page (www.smh.com.au).

At least it shows that your issue is not specific to explorer.exe. Any process whose window(s) is being pelted with WM_MOUSEMOVE messages will consume processor time to deal with the mouse movement in whatever way it sees fit.

What surprises me is that I cannot spot evidence of 3rd-party code or driver interference in your ETLs. Virtually all of that activity is in user-mode, and it's all expected and necessary: sending window messages, invoking window procedures, checking the owner of a particular rectangle... It's just that it all happens slower than it should, given your specs.

Obviously something improved around the time you removed RMclock because the utilisation dropped so drastically. If you're still encountering an unequivocal improvement when running in safe mode, I'd suggest a little basic safe mode troubleshooting:

Fire up MSCONFIG, choose a "diagnostic" startup, reboot... any improvement?

I'll try that now. So, this is just software problem right? Never with hardware?

EDIT: Tried Diagnostic mode, no improvement, moving the mouse in the desktop still yielded an average of 10% CPU usage.

 

[H2SO4]

Fire up MSCONFIG, choose a "diagnostic" startup, reboot... any improvement?

I'll try that now. So, this is just software problem right? Never with hardware?

Depends on how you look at it. The only way that different safe mode behaviour would be compatible with a "broken hardware" diagnosis is if the different (simpler) software environment in safe mode somehow failed to expose a hardware flaw. In your case, the hardware may not be outright broken though...

My gut feeling is that your hardware is somehow getting throttled in normal mode, but not in safe mode. Another mechanism - just like RMclock which you've now removed - is getting invoked on startup in normal mode and causing the processor to go a little more comatose. If that wild guess is even remotely accurate, running the same benchmark in safe and normal modes should produce very different results.

 

[H2SO4]

EDIT: Tried Diagnostic mode, no improvement, moving the mouse in the desktop still yielded an average of 10% CPU usage.

I'd like to see just how your machine performs during simple tasks that have nothing to do with the mouse. Try this please...

Paste the following into a batch file, or just use the one I uploaded here:

@echo off
echo Starting...
echo |time |find "time is"
for /L %%i IN (1,1,100000) DO @echo %i >nul
echo Finished!
echo |time |find "time is"

Run that batch file in both safe and normal modes and paste back the results please. They'll look like this:

N:\>stressbat.bat
Starting...
The current time is: 20:55:15.93
Finished!
The current time is: 20:55:49.24

 

[n8w1ng]

ive noticed the same...i can get one of my cores to 100% just by simply movin my mouse cursor rly fast over my desktop....the process havin 100% cpu usage is...n the winner is: explorer.exe

the same thing is bein discussed here as well: http://forums.logitech.com/t5/G-Series-Mice/Moving-mouse-results-in-high-CPU-usage/m-p/278283

 

[kevindd992002]

Did you modify your registry key labeled mousehovertime?

 

[n8w1ng]

Did you modify your registry key labeled mousehovertime?

no i havent...is that thing gonna fix it???