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
    2015-03-16T14:13:59+00:00

    I can confirm that this problem is fixed by disabling Realtek audio driver in Device Manager > Sound, video... > Realtek High Definition Audio. I'm using external USB audio, so this is not major issue for me.

    Before disabling, the System & System Interrupts processes consumes around 30-40% of CPU, keeps the CPU at high clock, produces a lot of heat and therefors a lot of fan noise. After disabling the system idles at ~5%.

    Its ironic, that I bought Microsoft device because I assumed 100% hardware compatibility with Microsoft Windows. It's also ironic, that MIcrosoft, as a software giant, produce better hardware than softwar. Hope that Windows 10 will be more mature.

    UPDATE:

    Woaha. Disabling the Realtek audio driver seem to solve more than one problem. Previously, resuming from sleep sometimes do not woke up my external displays and I had to manually turn then on and off. Since I disabled Realtek audio, my external displays resumes from sleep every time.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-03-14T01:02:22+00:00

    I'm experiencing this as well, and provided my feedback to Microsoft with a "very dissatisfied" rating alongside a link to these postings via the Surface App which has a feedback section (scroll to the right).

    Perhaps, if others report this via the official Surface App feedback channel, it may just help raise awareness that it is serious enough of an issue to make us very dissatisfied with our SP3 device.  It's a very short and convenient form, see below.

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