Windows 7 has High CPU Usage and slow performance

Anonymous
2009-11-18T04:59:29+00:00

Hello all,

I've searched the forums, but was unable to find anything relevant.  I recently upgraded to Windows 7 from Vista.  It was running fine for about a week then all of a sudden everything started running very slow.  I checked the the processes tab in task manager and I am constantly running at 70-80% CPU usage.  I think this is very high considering the computer is only a few months old.  It seems like others are having this problem as well, but no real solutions.

I have turned off file indexing as well as disabled the HD audio device. 

Please help!

Here are my hardware specs:

AMD 9550 Quad-Core

64-bit

6GB Ram

Thank you in advance for your help.  I am ready to toss this thing from my second story window.

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Windows update

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Anonymous
2010-01-02T19:29:42+00:00

I think the answer might be the Windows Media Player and Windows Media Network Sharing Services as zxypher suggested.  The fix for that is to adjust were the Windows Media Player services search for media files. 

It seems to be a bad problem for me as well upgrading from Vista to Windows 7.  The default search location for media is set to C:\Users\ instead of down in the My Music folders.

Go into Media Player.  From the menu -> File -> Manage libraries -> select each library (music, video, pictures, recorded tv [if you have]) and check the paths that it is managing and make sure it is not too close to the root of the C: drive.  For example, it should be something like c:\users\Jim\Music and c:\users\Public\Music BUT NOT **** c:\users as they will cause the whole directory tree to be re-indexed over and over (when you surf the web or change any files in your profile).

If you have multiple users who login to the computer, you may need to repeat the process for each user if all users have added managed folders which are actively changing on a regular basis.

If this is your issue and you do it correctly, then the high CPU should drop in minutes (or seconds down to nothing).

This is the CORRECT way to adjust the WMNSS/WMPNetwk.exe process issues.

A little more information can be found here:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7performance/thread/2fe4901b-2eaf-4a99-b487-e6a6213b10b3/

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-10-22T23:18:55+00:00

    Also make a xperf trace [1] to diagnostic the high CPU usage. Please upload the etl file to your SkyDrive [2] and post a link here.

    I'll take a look at it.

    André

    [1] http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=140264

    [2] http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/4fc10639-02db-4665-993a-08d865088d65


    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-10-22T21:27:33+00:00

    Hi, mine windows media player, stutters everytime I start that evil thing up. Mine CPU-Usage rises to 90% Or 100%. Really weird, it never happened..

    I have my Xbox 360, connected to Internet.I put on the Xbox the Windows Media Center, so my computer was slow.Logical, but now does windows media player so strange,

    I'm sorry for mine bad english. ;)

    Intel Celeron E3300 (Dual Core)

    2 GB

    Intel GMA 3100 (256 MB)

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-10-22T01:19:14+00:00

    Aaron, why do yo propose such common statement as answer? It answers nothing.


    "A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-10-21T23:47:25+00:00

    It sounds like you may have a virus.

    Go into Task Manager, over to the processes tab, and click the "CPU" column to bring the process to the top that is using the most. Make sure "Show processes from all users" is selected. See whether you recognize the process name at the top. If it is not a system process, try ending it and see if your computer runs faster.

    Another thing you should definitely do is disable extra startup processes. Type "msconfig" into the start menu search box and press enter. Click on the startup tab, and deselect the ones that you do not recognize based on the name, or that you do not use.

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