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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253 additional answers

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  1. Anonymous
    2010-01-06T19:01:21+00:00

    updated drivers?  there is an issue with an early phenom cpu and vista/7

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-01-06T19:38:16+00:00

    I have a clean win7 installation, but got the same problem. Im not constantly running high cpu, but very often. its impossible tp watch videos from the computer, and even worce on youtube and other sites...

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-01-06T19:55:57+00:00

    @v-by and DimRah

    Do you see which process has high CPU usage?


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

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-01-06T20:44:48+00:00

    Its not the same process.

    if i watch a flash film or go on youtube and watch something my browser hast high cpu usage. But sometimes it works fine and its no problems.

    If i play Diablo 1, i have the same problem and diablo has high cpu usage. Impossibe to play. Also tried to play modern warefare 2 but the same problem there.

    But the problem is not constant, it can work fine, but sudently, the process of the "biggest" program or several programs makes high cpu load.

    But some times i've seen that "taskmgr.exe" takes a lot of the cpu, but its not always taskmgr uses a lot of cpu.

    I had the problem, and i thought that it was a virus problem or something, så i installed a fresh install of windows 7, and the same problem continues.

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