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
    2010-10-22T21:27:33+00:00

    Hi, mine windows media player, stutters everytime I start that evil thing up. Mine CPU-Usage rises to 90% Or 100%. Really weird, it never happened..

    I have my Xbox 360, connected to Internet.I put on the Xbox the Windows Media Center, so my computer was slow.Logical, but now does windows media player so strange,

    I'm sorry for mine bad english. ;)

    Intel Celeron E3300 (Dual Core)

    2 GB

    Intel GMA 3100 (256 MB)

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-10-22T01:19:14+00:00

    Aaron, why do yo propose such common statement as answer? It answers nothing.

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

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-10-21T23:47:25+00:00

    It sounds like you may have a virus.

    Go into Task Manager, over to the processes tab, and click the "CPU" column to bring the process to the top that is using the most. Make sure "Show processes from all users" is selected. See whether you recognize the process name at the top. If it is not a system process, try ending it and see if your computer runs faster.

    Another thing you should definitely do is disable extra startup processes. Type "msconfig" into the start menu search box and press enter. Click on the startup tab, and deselect the ones that you do not recognize based on the name, or that you do not use.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-10-18T21:34:38+00:00

    I would like to add that I too have been seeing my CPU usage staying up at 50-70% for hours at the time. In task Manager it would always show that System was what was using up so many CPU cycles. I started noticing to that my Battery life had dropped in half of what I was getting before. After weeks of running diagnostics, system monitors and fix it programs everything returned that there was nothing wrong with my Laptop. Also it wasn't very noticable as that if I opened a large application, AutoCad/Solidworks etc. the system would slow down enough to keep my PC from maxing out above 90% so it never would hang but just keep running high all the time. Well after 3 weeks of trying I finally found out what was the Problem. it is SideBar.exe and my Gadgets (Clock, Calendar, CPU Meter) was causing the system to run high. Once I closed out all Gadgets my CPU has been running between 1% & 5% ever since.

    Also I see above that some people were having Adobe Flash lock up there PC. Well I've been having the same Problem, everytime I view anything in a flash player it ends up locking up my PC after about 8-10 minutes. Also I noticed that whenever Flash would hang that the CPU Clock speed would constantly stay at the minimum speed. Some times I could start a large application and get the CPU clock speed to go to Maximium and then the PC wouldn't hang but once the Clock speed went back to minimum then it would start hanging again. To get around this now I always download all videos and watch them in Windows Media Player and I haven't had any more Problems. If anyone knows how to make flash work please respond and let me know. I have updated Flash every time a new update comes out. Windows 7 32 Bit, 4Gigs RAM, 2.33 Intel Processor.

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