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

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
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
    2012-02-12T16:20:42+00:00

    I uninstalled ad-aware and it fixed it. Checking he 'Resource Monitor' showed it as the culprit. Thanks for the help I found here!

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-02-03T00:35:35+00:00

    Lori,

    Yes sometimes i wish it was that easy and you have the choice to do so. But the fact remains irrespective of what causes it for you, it is an MS problem and they are not addressing the issue without directiing you to one of their partners, who want to charge you $100 or more to repaif it. So they know of a repair just want to make money of it? I refuse to pay for a solution. The audiodg.exe file started me down this path now other programs are cause inthe issue, Norton Internet Securtiy 2012 , flags the High CPU usage, but I use Syatenm Mechanics 10.7 to clean my PC, defrag my registry and optimise my Hard Drive, this is now causing the issue, but my PC is still at speed, no slow downs. My PC specs:

    Intel 3.0 Ghz CPU E7600 Dual Core

    4Gb DDR3 1066 memory

    Asus Motherboard P5P43TD PRO

    Norton Internet Security 2012, Malware Bytes, purchased in protection mode

    Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

    Some people have no respect for my choice of Anti Virus, but I have been using their products for 12 years and it hasn't failed me yet.

    I would rather try and pressure MS into solving the problem, especially with Windows 8 in the wings? Will it suffer the same problems?

     Good Luch with your decision.

      Pisces

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-02-02T23:40:18+00:00

    why is every upgrade that MS makes such a challenge for every day people to use effectively?

    I suspect thefirst  answeer by  dated  in Jan.2010,  at the top of this forum  may be right, but isn't there an easier, more understandable way to fix it/    I am ready to dump  MS and switch to an Apple product

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-12-17T17:47:24+00:00

    I was experiencing the same issue, on a MacBook Air running only Windows 7 (removed MacOS entirely.)

    Task Manager showed High CPU Usage (80-100%) when idling immediately after bootup, but none of the Processes showed any CPU usage, so I decided to start shutting down individual Services one at a time.

    I discovered the culprit (for me, at least) was the service: "Microsoft .NET Framework NGEN v2.0.50727_X64"

    I'm going to experiment with reinstalling .NET Framework and see if that helps.

    Hopefully this helps other people, too.

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