My CPU usage is high at times without a particular reason. How to decrease it?

Question

Hi!

I have a HP Compaq dc7800p Small Form Factor business pc with Windows Vista Business version. The processor is Intel® Core™2 Duo E6750 processor (2.66 GHz, 4 MB L2 cache, 1333 MHz FSB). It has 2002 MB RAM memory. It is new out of the box, and I use AVG antivirus.

Anyways, sometimes I have a high CPU usage even when surfing the net. I do not know what the problem is, or how to reduce it. I don't know how to find the application which has high cpu usage. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thank you.

Answer 1

Go to Task Manager/Processes tab, and disable those processes that you don't use.

You can also remove processes from your Startup menu.

For advice on which processes are safe to disable, or remove from Startup menu, there's a couple of links below:

Answer 2

Exactly how high are we talking here? Open the task manager (ctrl + shift + esc) and go to the processes tab. Order everything by CPU. System Idle Process should be between 80 and 99. Everything else should be around 0 to 10, a bit higher if it's actually doing something, in which case System Idle should be lower as well. If you have anything that looks suspicious, you may want to run anti virus.

Answer 3

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. CCleaner also fixes your registry. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware.



You can download cleaner for free here http://bit.ly/1kGZmoH

Answer 4

Having lots of tabs open tends to be very taxing on computers. If thats not the problem... I'm not super familiar with vista but u can try Crtl+alt+delete and look for a processes tab. You should be able to figure out what it is from there and end it.

Answer 5

It's either your anti-virus, anti-spyware, Automatic Windows Update, or some other automatic update. Since you are using AVG, I would think Windows Update is the culprit.



Are you using the computer on a network at work??? Your network administator may have setup a group policy that shedules scans that slow down your machine... You will need them to stop only run scans on your computer on the weekend or at night!

Answer 6

Try to close some programs. You might have a virus if the CPU is high like all the time. That happened to me. D:

Answer 7

The high CPU usage is nothing to be worried about, this is normal and all that is happening is the CPU is working on background programs.

Answer 8

Hey there,

CCleaner is the best tool on the market to clean up your pc. Download here http://bitly.com/UrAPYj

It's a very good program and easy to use.

Hope it helps.