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

Anonymous

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.

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Anonymous

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:

From Desktop, swipe in from the right edge of the screen and open the Charms menu
Select Settings
Select Control Panel
Select Power options
Select Change plan settings
Select Restore default settings for this plan
Select Yes
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:

Surface Pro battery and power

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

We are here to help!

Best Wishes,

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Anonymous

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

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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198 additional answers

Anonymous

2015-04-11T04:01:05+00:00

Sleep mode is a reduced power consumption mode that turns off the user interface while the rest of the device "sleeps".

When "asleep" a Windows 8 / 8.1 tablet will still poll WiFi connections and do some background processes.

My Surface Pro 2 seems to have daily updates. It quickly empties my data download quota on a 3G connection (via WiFi router). Had to change the Settings to prevent it downloading updates when on 3G.

The only way to stop my Surface Pro 2 from doing anything is to Shut down when not needed and is being carried. I only use Sleep when it is connected to the mains power and is sitting on a desk.

Shut down with a Surface Pro is similar to the old Hibernate on earlier versions of Windows in that it saves current configurations to a file so that it rapid boots when switch back on. It is very quick to boot up from a Shut down state.

So: Do not use Sleep when the Surface is bagged and being carried. Use Shut down instead.

In a way, it is by design; it is not a defect.

Should also note that before the Surface Pro 2, I owned an ASUS Smart Tab tablet that I upgraded from Windows 8 to 8.1. It showed the same battery drain on sleep that the Surface has. It would go flat in about 3 days if left to sleep alone.
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Anonymous

2015-04-02T13:47:10+00:00
Hey,

I got this problem as well. It is definitely related to the Realtek High Definition Audio Device drivers, as well as the power profiles (this occurs after unplugging and plugging a power supply or docking undocking SP3 a few times after coming out of hibernation or sleep.)

Done a lot of testing with a lot of solutions mentioned in this forum (thanks to dsvdsvfdfvdsdfgd), but I am unable to get rid of the high CPU usage issue entirely, it comes back whenever I unplug the power. But I have just managed to find a workaround that works pretty reliably for me for now.
1. Go to Device Manager. Right-click Realtek High Definition Audio Device, Uninstall it. Check Delete Drivers. Click OK.
2. Go to Windows Update and perform a check update. This will find the a new "System Hardware Update", which is the Realtek High Def drivers. So go ahead, right click, and hide it. Until Microsoft comes up with a better solution, we will just ignore this driver, or the newer set of driver from Realtek. I tried both. They are both problematic.
3. Do a "Scan for hardware change" in Device Manager. This will find new hardware and you will be using the generic High Definition Audio Device drivers. These are working fine. But you will still observe high CPU usage once again you plug out and plug the power back in (or dock/undock it), after resuming from hibernation.
4. The workaround is to go to Device Manager. Disable High Definition Audio Device. And then re-enable it immediately. The CPU usage will go down instantly.
You can plug and unplug, dock and undock any number of times you like, but just remember to disable and re-enable your generic High Def Audio Driver to "reset the CPU usage" back to normal.

I have tried various combinations. And this works the best for me.

You can continue to use the Realtek drivers, i.e. ignore step 1-3. But the caveat is you can only disable/enable it ONCE to "reset CPU usage". If you observe CPU going up again after that due to plugging/unplugging docking/undocking, you cannot "reset CPU usage" by disabling/enabling the Realtek audio drivers (which is why I think you should get rid of them entirely and use the generic audio driver). It doesn't work for me.

Using the generic Audio drivers allow you to "reset CPU usage" as and when it comes back.

I hope this workaround fix the problem for you all. It did for me, although it is really troublesome to remember to do the disable/enable dance whenever I undock the SP3.

And seriously, Microsoft need to fix this ASAP. No user should have to go through this.

Update: This method works only when SP3 is plugged in. When unplugged, the CPU usage will still go up sporadically. So this isn't a good solution after all. :(

Using the latest Realtek drivers and disabling it when you notice CPU usage going up is a more reliable approach. But that will mean no sound till you reboot.

Alternatively, avoid hibernation altogether.
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