High Windows 7 CPU utilization - what to do?

If you no apparent reason have a high CPU utilization under Windows 7 and thus also a significant performance loss, there are several possible causes. Three approaches are presented here.

High CPU Utilization due to a virus

Check check processes in the Task Manager Processes in Task Manager may have a virus on your PC. To verify this, you can do the following:

Open the Task Manager by pressing [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [Del] and then "open Task Manager" on.

You may sort the list of processes with a click on the "CPU".

If you are idle, neither process should have a high CPU usage. Try so to find the process that is responsible for the CPU utilization. If you do not find such, you probably have a virus on your PC, since they know how to hide from the task manager.

So, run your virus scanner, to find the virus.

Checkout: Increase Virtual Memory Size In Windows 7.

High CPU utilization due to the startup programs

Senseless Startup Software Search Senseless Startup Software Search Possibly the high CPU utilization is caused by the software that starts with Windows.

Follow steps 1 and 2 from above through to open the Task Manager with the CPU Reiter

Look for processes that require a great deal of CPU power.

Press the Windows key + [R], type in the appearing window "msconfig".

Go to the tab "Startup" and check to see if you will find here one of the processes that currently require much CPU power.

This allows you to exclude from Auto Start by removing the check mark to the left. But beware: your virus scanner or your backup program, you should not be removed from the autostart. These still require some but a lot of CPU power.

High CPU Utilization due svchost.exe

Search within Appdaten according to svchost svchost Appdaten after looking through the faulty installation of a library can start in the AppData a meaningless, but CPU-intensive process: svchost.exe. This should not be confused with the Windows svchost.exe own. You can also read the article about: How to identify and troubleshoot Windows svchost.exe

Run back through the steps 1 and 2 from above.

At the top of the process "svchost.exe", continue.

Press the Windows key + [R], type in the appearing window "% appdata%" a.

Search the appearing Explorer window, the folder "dll" and delete, if it exists, in the file "svchost.exe".

To obtain more information about running processes, you can use the Free Extended Task Manager. You should also check before troubleshooting, whether in the Control Panel, select "Balanced" "Power Options" or "Sleep mode", but not "high performance" is selected. Need individual help for resolving your issue, then contact the experts at the CHIP Forum.

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