PhoneExperienceHost.exe high CPU usage when pc idle

Anonymous
2022-11-12T15:18:33+00:00

Hi,

When I come back to my laptop and it's gone into idle mode (screen off) I can hear the fans running fast, but as soon as I move the mouse the fans die off. I tried to figure out for a while what was happening and eventually set up perfmon to record what processes were running. I discovered that runs at 50% CPU continuously while the machine is in idle which is ridiculous for something that shouldn't be doing anything much (I'd upload a screenshot but there doesn't seem to be an option anywhere). Looking at details in Task Manager the PhoneExperienceHost.exe process has used twice as much CPU in total than any other app, even though I haven't used it in the foreground.

I do use Phone link to connect to my phone, but it's in the background (system tray icon only) and shouldn't be doing anything most of the time.

There's nothing related in Event viewer and I can't see anything in Scheduler which might trigger it.

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Phone Link software.

The machine says it is up to date for patching.

I've searched for anything related to this issue and found nothing helpful so either it's only my machine, or other people don't realise it's happening as it only happens when they can't look at it!

Any ideas on how to fix this so it stops using my power (obviously uninstalling is not an option)? (TBH though, I expect it's something built into the software and can only be fixed by MS)

Thanks,

Jon W

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Connect Phone and PC

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-01-25T00:46:13+00:00

    Hi TDice, thanks for taking the trouble to report to Feedback Hub. I'm no longer afraid to click on an aka.ms link -- after spending the time required to determine that it's a domain controlled by Microsoft USA -- so I clicked on your link, but got an unhelpful response.

    I hope you'll take the trouble to post an update here if you get any response from Microsoft. It'd be nice to know if they're at least acknowledging the issue. It has overheated my laptop only once AFAIK. I tried to diagnose a bit using procexp and procmon, and by looking for a logfile in the immediate neighbourhood of the PhoneExperienceHost.exe which was hogging a CPU core. Curiously: it appears *not* to be bashing at the file system or the registry, but is instead just bashing at main memory -- but without a big enough working set to be making much forward progress at bitcoin mining. If the process running this exe were "merely" busy-waiting on a signal from another process that has timed out or been terminated, then I can't see why it'd have 28MB in its working set... and if it were trolling through my filesystem to discover phone numbers and accompanying PII in my files (even though I have never knowingly given it permission to do such a thing), I'd see the filesystem activity with procmon. So ... it's not your run-of-the-mill CPU hog... so I'm *guessing* it'll be impossible for the QA team at MS to localise until they have a bit more to go on than individual Win11 installations which (for whatever reason) are exhibiting this defect after (perhaps) a prolonged period in some half-sleep mode after the monitor-darkening timer has kicked in...

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-01-17T16:21:51+00:00

    Same problem here. PhoneExperienceHost.exe uses CPU intensively when display goes off due to inactivity.

    Something is totally off, and it's either mining software built-in into the Phone Link which uses CPU instead of GPU for some reason, or just a nasty bug which should be fixed asap in sake of nature resources saving and reducing humanity CO2 footprint.

    Win 11 22H2

    Phone Link 1.22102.229.0

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-01-16T17:34:02+00:00

    Just weighing in as another person to have this issue.

    • Windows 10 21H2
    • Phone Link 1.22112.142.0
    • Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra with Samsung's January 2023 Update

    I'll add that it's not just high usage at idle, it's 100% usage of one of the CPU cores at idle. With today's multi-core CPUs with hyperthreading, the usage percentage to Windows via Task Manager "doesn't look that bad," but the reason for the fan noise is that one of the cores is at a constant 100% load, and with just that one core "working," modern CPUs are able to boost that single core very aggressively. I have a 16-core/32-thread CPU, and this behavior results in "only" 3.125% CPU usage (1/32 at 100%) usage despite the CPU fan spinning at its full speed.

    Anyway, hopeful for a fix.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-01-12T14:25:46+00:00

    Same issue here - fresh install of windows and same thing with CPU temp & fans and phonelink. Thanks to this thread at least I know how to stop it. Very repeatable, would be nice to think MS are on the case (maybe wishful thinking)

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  5. Anonymous
    2023-01-03T01:38:03+00:00

    Same issue. Likely wont get fixed. Microsoft doesn't seem to be capable of fixing anything. Had issues with PhoneLink on a windows 10 laptop, never got fixed. New laptop, it barely works and I get some notifications but with latest update I've noticed the high CPU usage when the laptop is idle. I'll just uninstall since I don't use it very much. Its easier for me to just have the phone next to me so I can get any alerts instead of relying on this horrible app

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