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
    2010-01-17T22:56:04+00:00

    Andre,

    I haven't tried your guide yet. But I posted on the Adobe and Windows 7 forum site that I have a workaround. If I get a chance soon I will have a look at your guide.

    This is what I posted on those sites (added a few extra comments in this copy):

    "Well some good news as far as video playback, not for adobe flash, but the flash video's. I can download the flash videos (using a youtube capture program) and play them back in both VLC and Arcsoft Total Media theatre without any of the video playback issues. So it looks like its Adobe Flash thats the problem.I can download a youtube 1080p h.264 video and play back the clip under Arcsoft Total Media Theatre 3 and only be using about 11% of my CPU (an old P4 3.0Ghz Hyperthreaded cpu) as Arcsoft provides hardware acceleration of the clips.Now if Arcsoft can provide hardware acceleration on an ATI HD 2600 Pro AGP video card, surely ATI and Adobe can do the same for flash and also fix the bug in flash that makes flash stop using the video card GPU after a short period of time."

    Scotty1985 - My media center machine is a fresh install of W7, not an upgrade over Vista. So I think that discounts that as a problem

    DimRah - The chipset, LAN and audio drivers that Windows 7 installed, all came from Windows Update, so I am assuming that they are WHQL certified drivers.

    Helisgt - I have just requested the hotfix, so I will see if that fixes anything. Thanks for pointing me to it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-01-18T03:55:49+00:00

    Tried the hotfix and it made no difference. Adobe Flash still has the same problem.

    However my work around of downloading the .FLV content and playing it in Total Media Theatre 3 works for all the content so far. I checked out the GPU usage using GPUZ and found that it was using between 4 to 8% of the Video card GPU to play back 1080p .FLV files and only about 10->14% CPU. So thats fantastic!

    Its a shame that Youtube and the ABC website can't use Total Media Theatre to play back the FLV content, instead of adobe flash.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-01-22T21:11:43+00:00

    I had this problem with the windows media center. File name wmpnetwk.exe would start for no apparent reason and hog up to 90% of cpu. No answers anywhere as to why so I just reinstall win 7 and so far so good

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-01-31T18:45:42+00:00

    Andre,

    I tried to follow your guide, but the link does not appear to be active. Can you re-post it?

    Donald

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