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
    2023-03-31T18:16:25+00:00

    hmm🧐, last updates of app seems has been fixed this problem with ghost high cpu usage for me
    OS: Windows 11

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-03-08T00:26:33+00:00

    Ok the above didn't work but I did find a solution. I tried several things but nothing worked until this...

    In Setting->System->Notifications->Notifications from apps and other senders. Here you will see several notification for PhoneLink. Turn off any that look like Slack (via PhoneLink) or Calendar (via PhoneLink), Messages (via PhoneLink), etc. I had several of these and turned them all off.

    I did leave the default PhoneLink notification on. There was only one that didn't have the (via PhoneLink) appended to it.

    After monitoring my laptop going idle and screen turning off several times, the CPU now stays low and doesn't cause the fan to run while idle.

    Hope this helps.

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-02-01T10:32:19+00:00

    Also when you close the app from taskbar, process not terminated (and when your PC go in idle, it will use CPU again) and you must start task manager to terminate process "PhoneExperienceHost.exe"

    In Process Explorer you can see that thread named "dwmcorei.dll!LiftedCompositionEngine_Initialize" loads your CPU![](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/a472b581-07f4-4480-bc8e-9a91a97be3b8?platform=QnA

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  4. 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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  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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