CPU Usage Monitor needed

dsscottage · 02 Feb 2016

I'm running Win 7 Ultimate on a backup computer and it is running like it is stuck in molasses.

When I look at task manager, the running applications are taking a small percentage of CPU usage but the Performance tab indicates 100% CPU usage. Unlike Win 10, Win 7 doesn't show the CPU usage for each of the running processes. However, something that I can't see is taking up all the CPU capacity.

Is there any other CPU monitoring program that will show me what is causing all this usage?

pbcopter · 02 Feb 2016

What does it show under Processes in the Task Manager? It should show how much CPU is used by each process.
Don't forget to select show for all users.

dsscottage · 02 Feb 2016

pbcopter said:

What does it show under Processes in the Task Manager? It should show how much CPU is used by each process.
Don't forget to select show for all users.

There is only one user on the computer but I clicked "Show Processes from all Users" anyway and displayed more processes.

Here is what is happening immediately after booting:
-Total CPU usage bounces from 20%-100% ultimately stabilizing at 100% after 4 or 5 minutes
-Under the Applications tab, there is nothing running
-Under the Processes tab, Avast UI, Taskmgr and Explorer show usage from 1%-3%
-As the CPU usage increases, there is a lot of CPU usage from "TrustedInstaller" but it ultimately reduces to 0%. Then usage on one scvhost increases to almost 100%
-The percent of physical memory increases to almost 100%

I terminated this one scvhost process and both the CPU and memory usage dropped dramatically.

I then loaded one application (Chrome) and the process started all over again.

There is something hogging the CPU and I'm looking for a way to identify the culprit before I resort to a fresh Windows install.

pbcopter · 02 Feb 2016

See if this will help

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810

dsscottage · 03 Feb 2016

pbcopter said:

See if this will help

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810

Thank-you for the suggestion but it didn't work.

I've been working on this for over 2 weeks. These is so much wrong with my system and everything that I try fails so I have decided to reinstall Windows but I can't even do that.

Because, my problem reinstalling Windows is different from the subject of this thread, I'm going to start a new thread on that issue.

Can't do a fresh install of Windows 7.

...but thank you for trying to help.

ThrashZone · 03 Feb 2016

Hi,
Monitoring your temperatures will help to give you a heads up on cpu usuage
CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID

DavidE · 03 Feb 2016

Have you looked at Task Manager / Performance / Resource Monitor ?

In Resource Monitor:
Click the check box for the svchost.exe process that is hogging CPU.
Sort the Services pane by CPU usage.
See if you can find what service(s) are hogging CPU.
If you can determine what services are hogging CPU, you can google for that and look for fixes.

My example has all 0's, but i highlighted the fields i'm trying to explain in words.

CPU Usage Monitor needed-taskmgrresmon_01.png

dsscottage · 04 Feb 2016

DavidE said:

Have you looked at Task Manager / Performance / Resource Monitor ?

In Resource Monitor:
Click the check box for the svchost.exe process that is hogging CPU.
Sort the Services pane by CPU usage.
See if you can find what service(s) are hogging CPU.
If you can determine what services are hogging CPU, you can google for that and look for fixes.

My example has all 0's, but i highlighted the fields i'm trying to explain in words.

To answer your specific suggestion, given what I have done since I last posted, I can no longer get into the original version of Win 7 to check the resource monitor.

Actually I started to ask for help in another thread under a different subject. As the issue changed, I though it best to end that post and repost under a different title (this one). However, I'm still getting help under the original post:
Can't do a fresh install of Windows 7.

I don't want to waste forum resources on a double post so I'll thank those who have offered help here but ask that we put this thread on hold as I continue to deal with the original thread.

Sorry it this has been a waste of time.

DavidE · 04 Feb 2016

It's not a waste of time, most folks here are volunteers and try to help whenever they can :)

I just posted in your other thread.

dsscottage · 11 Feb 2016

pbcopter said:

See if this will help

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3102810

I've done more research and believe that I've found the answer. (not a solution - just an answer).

Because, I couldn't initially solve the 100% CPU occupancy issue, I did a fresh install of Windows 7 (an agonizing process but it was completed). Shortly afterward, the 100% CPU occupancy issue returned on the fresh install.

After a lot of searching, the suggestion provided by pbcopter is the answer. However, it only works on systems equipped with a multi core CPU. The Win 7 update process consumes a lot of CPU resources (100%) and the suggested fix seems to dedicate that process to one of the CPU cores, leaving the other to work on other tasks. However, in my case, my old computer has a single core CPU and apparently the only way to solve the issue is to turn off Windows Update. This is what I did and now Win 7 operates as it should.

To me it seems that Microsoft is being a little shady on this issue. If they can issue a fix to restrict Windows Update activity to one core, surely they could develop a fix to limit the activity to a proportion of the CPU in a single core system (50%?). If I'm cynical, it would seem that they were trying to force people with older systems to upgrade. If this is truly the case, they definitely won't dedicate resources to the problem now that they have moved on to Window 8 and Windows 10.