Windows 7 has High CPU Usage and slow performance

High CPU issues can be caused by many factors:

1. Third party security applications like Antivirus, Firewalls, etc
2. Other startup items set to start when you boot your computer
3. Incompatible programs not designed for Windows 7
4. Drivers not compatible with Windows 7
5. Low System requirements (slow processor, little RAM, etc)
6. Others

The easiest thing to do first is find out which program is causing the high CPU.

1. Right click on your task bar and choose "Start Task Manager" and click the "Processes" tab
2. Click "Show Processes from all users" at the bottom
3. Click the column HEADER named CPU, this will sort the list of programs by the ones that use the MOST CPU at the top
4. Write down which EXE files are always at the top
5. BING SEARCH the EXE files to see what they are and which program they are a part of
6. figure out if you need them or not :)

You can also try a CLEAN BOOT which will turn off programs from your startup.  check the following article for details:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/929135?p=1

I hope this helps.  If you find out which programs are taking the most CPU, feel free to post them in a new thread and we can help identify them.

Kevin

If you find that my answer was what you were looking for, please remember to click the "mark as answer" box below!

Thanks for joining the discussion Kevin. Unfortunately, these issues are mainly regarding completely fresh installations of Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. So there is no 3rd party software yet installed when the high CPU utilization problem occurs, only Windows 7 default programs and settings.

So far on this forum, I've seen people having problems with Dell, HP, and Asus systems, so it seems fairly hardware independent.  In my case, I am experiencing it with a Dell Optiplex 960. This system had been tested with Windows XP and was working nominally.

Immediately after the Windows 7 32-bit or 64-bit installations with no Dell drivers yet installed (only default drivers), CPU usage was reported between 35-50%.

As an example of behavior I've seen, I installed Windows 7 (both 32-bit & 64-bit versions) with just default settings and drivers. I opened Notepad and began typing. There was a 1-4 second lag between typing and seeing the letters appear on the screen. I eventually tried installing the latest Dell Windows 7 drivers on the machine and the problem did not disappear. Again, this same computer was working nominally with Windows XP, so it doesn't appear to be the hardware.

So I hope that's a clearer example of what we have all been seeing. Maybe you or someone else could shed some light on this.

Oh, and some people have suggested turning off the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service. I had tried that, but I still see the high CPU utilization.

Many thanks,

Steve

Hi Steve,

what is using the CPU too much? A service or application? Or is the system using it? I posted 2 links to make a xperf trace to see which driver is causing the SYSTEM usage.

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

Hi people, i have had this issue but not only with the cpu, my ram would normally go up to 80 to 95% usage to just like my cpu, i found out just today that when launching certain programs i would get an error message saying windows media player stopped working and even if it is not running there is a proccess for windows media player and windows media player side gadget running proccesses in task manager, and i found that windows media player proccess shot up to massive amounts of ram usage and made my cpu usage spike.

Now i could close off the proccess for windows media player but it would come back if i didnt also close the side gadget proccess for it to, but when i closed them both off in proper order my ram usage woul spike up to 90% usage or higher and stay there like that the entire time until i restarted. So i decided to disable windows media player through programs and features through control panel through the turn off and on microsoft features section of programs and features. Well you can imagine that i found it completely fixed my problem, i am running windows 7 home premium 64bit by the way jsut so you all know.

So why dont you all try disabling widnows media player outright which will also disable windows media center but it should stop the high cpu and ram usage anyone may have in GENERAL :P, give it a shot and see how much it helps. I also found that before disabling it that when loading a folder with a buncha shortcuts with icons that the icons for those shortcuts would load really slow even with low ram and cpu usage, now that i disabled windows mediaplayer every loads instantely basicaly and doesnt go slow, and all proccesses use the correct amount of ram and cpu usage accordingly to those programs specs.