Surface Pro 3 High CPU load when idle, high system cpu load

Anonymous
2014-07-22T12:13:28+00:00

Has anyone else noticed that coming out of sleep or herniate results in unwarranted high cpu load from system interrupts? 

I have all the latest firmware and updates loaded. But using sleep even sometimes a cold boot I get this issue.

How can I fix this please. Its killing my battery life.

Surface | Surface Pro | Performance and maintenance

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2014-07-19T23:25:46+00:00

Hi jiachengguo,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Community! Sorry to know that you are facing battery issues with your new Surface Pro 3. I can see how concerning this is to you, so please know we will do our best to help and guide you in the right direction!

In order to better assist you, I will need to gather a few more details:

  • Have you made any changes to the power settings? And if so, what exact changes have you made?
  • Do you have any startup or background apps running?
  • Do you have a micro SD card inserted or any accessories and Bluetooth devices connected? If so, please disconnect or remove any external accessories and test it again.
  • Have you restarted the Surface and then set it to sleep after the restart? If not, please do so as well.
  • Have you tried resetting the power settings back to the default settings? If you haven't, here is how:
  1. From Desktop, swipe in from the right edge of the screen and open the Charms menu
  2. Select Settings
  3. Select Control Panel
  4. Select Power options
  5. Select Change plan settings
  6. Select Restore default settings for this plan
  7. Select Yes
  8. Restart your Surface

Additionally, for further reference, all available battery information and tips on how to make it last longer, can be found in the next support article that applies for Surface Pro 2 and Pro 3:

We hope this information proves useful. Please keep us posted!

We are here to help!

Best Wishes,

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Anonymous
2014-07-19T17:43:11+00:00

Oh!! I just checked it again as I wanted to make a screenshot and now it's working! I don't know what changed. The only thing I did was that I originally enabled Hyper-V but when it started interfering with my WiFi connectivity I disabled it again, so maybe that's what was necessary.. I used to have constant high "System Interrupts" process running, but disabling one by one I found out that an Adobe startup process was causing it, so I disabled it and it seems to have fixed the issue. Either way, thanks for your responses!

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Anonymous
2014-07-19T02:11:55+00:00

Dear Clare,

No, this is not what I was asking. Please refer to the original question.

Perhaps you may have something running in the background.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-23T15:41:35+00:00

    Hello all

    Please keep in mind that processor use under normal conditions will fluctuate, sometimes due to background processes.  This will not impact performance when you are using Surface.

    Best regards

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-09-15T15:33:32+00:00

    I've been over at the overheating forums for the surface pro 3, but I've narrowed it down to the same problem you all have been having.

    My system never gets too hot or overheats when doing normal tasks, heck even playing a game with medium settings with a small fan blowing in the back, the system only gets warm.

    But, when idle I have the same issues as you, my windows task host (taskhost.exe) or windows installer (tiworker.exe) kicks in taking up about 30 percent of my CPU each, and when this happens, the unit starts to heat up and the fan will start going.

    I dont know if this is just how windows 8.1 is and if that's the case, they need to fix the design because the tablet is overheating, but if not, then this is some kind of bad software issue. I've checked for viruses and malware already. I've done one system reset with the august updates installed at the time, and now I'm up to date with all software updates.

    Can someone verify if this is just normal behavior for Windows 8.1 and thus the surface pro with i7's are not designed for the thin tablet form or if this is some kind of bad dll or software issue.

    Thanks

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