Edge spiking GPU usage bringing whole system to a crawl

Question

Edge spiking GPU usage bringing whole system to a crawl

Comical Dragon 0

Recently, for some reason, Microsoft edge has been spiking GPU and CPU usage, to the point the all of the system is slowed down. Like when I move the mouse its as if the entire computer screen is running at 1 frame every 5 seconds.

Windows take forever to redraw and sometimes show content behind them.

This is not caused by me having too many tabs. As right before typing this I opened edge from the taskbar and opened only one singular tab, yet the entire system just got slowed to a halt.

I have not installed any new plug-ins recently either.

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hi Comical Dragon,

Since the issue occurs even with a single tab open and causes the entire desktop to become unresponsive, it may be helpful to focus on the browser's GPU rendering process rather than tab count or extensions.

Please try these additional checks:

1, Check Edge's GPU diagnostics

Open edge://gpu
Look for any reported GPU rendering errors, disabled features, or graphics-related warnings.

2, Temporarily disable hardware acceleration

Open edge://settings/system
Turn off Use graphics acceleration when available
Restart Edge and test again.

3, Update the graphics driver

Install the latest graphics driver from your device or GPU manufacturer's website (Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA).
Restart the PC after installation.

4, Test with a new Edge profile

Select your profile icon > Add profile
Create a temporary profile and check whether the behavior persists.

If the issue continues, please share your GPU model and a screenshot of the edge://gpu page. That information may help identify whether a graphics driver or GPU acceleration component is contributing to the slowdown.

I hope this helps point you in the right direction. Let me know if you need further assistance, feel free to ask me by clicking "Add Comment" or "Add Answer" if you cannot add comment so your response will be visible. Thanks for your effort.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

Hendrix-V 19,115 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-12T07:10:30.0766667+00:00

Hi Comical Dragon,

If you have any further questions or updates regarding this issue, please feel free to let me know in the Comments section. I'd be happy to assist you.

Answer 2

Hii,

Does the problem only occur with Microsoft Edge or other browsers?

I recommend checking if there is a pending Windows update.

Go to start menu > settings > windows updates > check for updates

Access the Microsoft Store > Downloads > Get Updates and wait for the applications to update.

On your keyboard, press Ctrl + Shift + Delete.

In the time range drop-down menu, select "All time."

Check the boxes for "Cookies and other site data" and "Cached images and files."

Click "Clear data" and restart the browser.

Also, go to Edge > click the three dots > Settings > System and performance > under "System," uncheck all the options.

Go back to the previous menu and disable the browser's "Energy saver" option.

I also recommend running a scan with AdwCleaner (which is free) just to be safe and check if any sites have permissions.

Open the command prompt and run the commands: sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth. Wait for the process to complete and restart your computer.

If the process didn't work, try a clean boot to check if third-party software is causing the problem with the Edge browser.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-execute-a-simple-boot-start-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

Thanks