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
    2009-11-25T05:01:28+00:00

    zxypher's comment about Windows Media Network Sharing Service made me remember (i think) a similar problem in Vista.  Try opening up services.msc and changing that service to 'disabled.'  I'd be interested to know if it stops the spikes.

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  2. Anonymous
    2009-11-25T18:49:00+00:00

    Well this looks more along of the line of the problem I am having. I've tried everything with no solution. At first I thought it might had been a hardware issue, but I can't be sure. When I do start experiencing the slowness, I did once disable my graphics card, and the spike was gone, or serverly reduced, and when I enabled it, the slowness returned. All drivers are up to date. I've checked the process list, but nothing is taking up resources, tried restarting explorer, nothing! Oh, and I've disabled all the eye candy, and I still get it.

    NVIDIA GTS 250

    AMD Phenom II X4 955 B.E.

    4 GB 1600 MHz 240-Pin SDRAM DDR3

    ASUS M4A79T Deluxe motherboard

    It would be great if a MS person posted in here letting us know whats going on!

    Randall

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  3. Anonymous
    2009-11-25T21:54:37+00:00

    I guess this is where my problem lives as well. I reported on my Issue in the thread "CPU Stuck at 100%" but have gotten no responses yet. I have looked all over the place for some insight into this issue and all I have heard is some spotty success with re-installing some hardware drivers. I have tried that to no avail. Having just spent $200 on this OS I would be severely dissappointed to now have to revert to Vista or XP or something (can I get a refund?).

    Does anyone from Microsoft monitor these posts? Seems like a lot of people with a similiar problem to ignore ...

    • Gary

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  4. Anonymous
    2009-11-25T22:21:39+00:00

    While this is not a great answer here's somethign I discovered on my own ... I opened up the Device Manager and set the VIEW to "Resources by Type" and basically started going through there disabling things until I saw a change. I found an entry under MEMORY cald something like "HD Audio" (I can't see it anymore since I disabled it ... I don't know where it went to.)  As soon as I disabled it my CPU Utilization dropped to 8%. I don't have ANY idead where that Audio device came from. I installed an XFX Radeon HD 4350 Graphics card but I didn't see any audio i/o so I don't know if that is the culprit or if it's something onboard.

    Of course this was a tedious and slow process as the CPU was pegged .. but once done, my machine seems to have it's old "ZEST"back.

    I'll post if I gain anymore insight into what exactly happened but thought that maybe this might help some of you having this similar problem.

    Gary

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