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
    2015-01-19T16:54:15+00:00

    Well, I can say the latest firmware (installed 1/15/2015) and software updates (installed 1/19/2015) don't eliminate this problem.  If I ask Windows Update to check for updates, there are none -- "No updates are available."

    My System process CPU utilization just shot up (again) to 13% to 20%, and my System interrupts process is using 8% to 14%.  If I close everything and take my hand off the keyboard, my Surface's CPU utilization is 32% -- yup, my idle Surface Pro 3 CPU utilization is 32% ... and it's very (uncomfortably) warm in the upper right.

    This is soon after a cold boot in my docking station (1.5 hours ago).  So far I've replied to a few emails, responded to some Skype messages, and started working in VS 2013.  The fan is so loud I stop working to reboot so this problem goes away for a bit and my fan shuts up -- but chances are good I'll end up rebooting once or twice later today ... typical.

    I hate this thing ... dumped so much money into it (256GB SP3 with docking station).  It looks so stupid on my desk because I have this huge cooler underneath it to try and keep it running cool when System and System interrupts takes off.  When I'm done with taxes I'm going to see what I have left over, buy something else, and dump this.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-01-19T16:46:31+00:00

    This is kind of annoying. It happen to me again yesterday. The CPU usage didn't go lower than 20% making the fan to kick on and drain more battery.

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