High CPU while doing nothing. How to diagnose and fix?

I love my Windows 7 and it used to love me. But in the last few weeks, amongst the normal life changes of upgrades, installs, uninstalls, etc. etc. My Windows 7 now burns CPU frantically whilst doing "nothing".

The primary use of the CPU is the System task (PID 4) "NT Kernel & System" running at around 29% CPU utilization (or utilisation when I am in the UK.)

There is some high activity on MSMpEng.Exe (Antimalware Service Executable) 20% but no viruses have ever been found, I run MSE all the time.

Suggestions?

Have seen this problem quite often. It was Win update endless scanning.
- Try to set WU service to manual (%windir%\system32\services.msc) and never check on windows update.
- Reboot
- Open WU and manually search for updates. If it searches forever, you have to fix WU.

RoasterMen said:

It's probably doing it's scheduled scan. Have you ever set a schedule?

Not a scan. Scans not running. Have also walked the list of scheduled "updates". Not applicable. None running. When they do, little/no impact (manual start.)

net stop "AdobeARMservice"
sc config "AdobeARMservice" start= demand

all is quiet.

Layback Bear said:

Your kind of problem happens when their are many not needed programs that start with a boot. Keeping msconfig Startup/Non Microsoft Services neat and tidy should help.
Unchecking things not need at boot will help.
Any program that checks for updates or scans at boot, in my opinion are not needed.
Nothing on my computer automatically does such things.
I manually update and or scan my computers when I choose to.

Jack

So do I.

Megahertz07 said:

So do I.

Yes, so do I. That kind of problem CAN occur that way, but in my case it was all ADOBE.

Turning off Adobe ARM was the solution and has proven itself since I tried this fix. Since, turning off ARM, I run a negligible cpu (single digit %) with Chrome using the most.

Solution for future readers:

soho1 said:

net stop "AdobeARMservice"
sc config "AdobeARMservice" start= demand