How to get the cause of high CPU usage caused by apps?

[callingashley]

Hi MagicAndre,

Got a new laptop 4 months back, Lenovo Z580, till a week, back everything was fine, but now its about 80-100% full CPU utilization.No process utilizing more than 10% (aggregate maybe 30%)(all users checked). Cannot understand the reason.In safe mode its perfectly fine.(CPU 2%)

I downloaded the win perf kit and tried the steps in your blogs, but was unable to find the options (graph "CPU sampling per CPU" ), maybe its different in the new perf kit version.

i uploaded latency.zip. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

http://www.mediafire.com/?9ysx9b84xdbyddd

Thanks & Regards

Ashley

Edited March 2, 2013 by callingashley

[MagicAndre1981]

the explorer uses some CPU usage to display overlay icons.

PromptService64.exe and PromptService.exe (5280) scan the registry for data.

that are the top3 programs which causes a high CPU usage. Next you run 3 AV tools (Windows Security Essentials , McAfee and COMODO). Only use 1 and remove the 2 others!

Use AutoRuns to stop all tools that you don't really need all the time.

[callingashley]

Thanks MagicAndre......MCAfee was expired and after removing it, system seems fine, using commodo as a firewall and security essentials as an anti virus. Although one strange problem does persist, on opening any new application or even a folder, the CPU usage shoots to 100% for a second to two!!!!!

[MagicAndre1981]

make a new trace which captures this CPU usage.

[callingashley]

Hey MagicAndre,

Thnx for the reply.....just back from a nice vacation.Please find the link of the trace, this trace is taken whenever i access folders on the system. The CPU usage shoots to 100% on folder access else it remains at 30-40% which i guess is standard.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b5v1c991b5zj64j

Thanks & Regards

Ashley

[MagicAndre1981]

you have DPC issues:

Total = 3164 for module iaStor.sys
Elapsed Time, >      512 usecs AND <=     1024 usecs,   1005, or  31.76%
Elapsed Time, >     1024 usecs AND <=     2048 usecs,     25, or   0.79%
Total,                                                  3164

Total = 23 for module netbt.sys
Elapsed Time, >     2048 usecs AND <=     4096 usecs,      4, or  17.39%
Elapsed Time, >     4096 usecs AND <=     8192 usecs,     17, or  73.91%
Elapsed Time, >     8192 usecs AND <=    16384 usecs,      1, or   4.35%
Total,                                                    23

Total = 423 for module tcpip.sys
Elapsed Time, >      512 usecs AND <=     1024 usecs,    220, or  52.01%
Elapsed Time, >     1024 usecs AND <=     2048 usecs,     34, or   8.04%
Total,                                                   423

udate the Intel AHCI, Realtek and Broadcom network drivers.

I can also see this call:

ntkrnlmp.exe!VerifierExAllocatePoolEx

this means you have driver verifier enabled. Didi you get several BSODs? Did you enable the verifier for better dumps? Please disable driver verifier and reboot. Your PC should be faster without DriverVerifer.

[callingashley]

Thnx MagicAndre...

I checked all three Intel AHCI, Realtek and Broadcom ....all reverted with the latest driver is already installed (this is a 5 month old lenovoZ580 with win7 laptop).I do get BSODs sometimes, mainly caused by NVIDIA...but that too has the latest driver installed.I have disabled driver verifier.

Thanks & Regards

Ashley

[MagicAndre1981]

is it now better with driver verifier disabled?

[callingashley]

Hey MagicAndre,

Thnx a ton!!!!!!...disabling Driver Verifier did it!!!!!! this was enabled by default on my system....win7 came with the laptop.Now the CPU is 12% on folder access, while typical CPU is 2-3%. Do let me know which report you saw on the WPA, i had tried, but could not figure which process was utilizing the CPU. Thnx once again....u da man.

Thanks & Regards

Ashley

[MagicAndre1981]

I saw this in the callstack of the CPU sampling summary table.

[firedragon]

HI, I'm new to this forum as I have an issue with the NT Kernel eating over 50% of my CPU and its constantly maxed at 100%. I have read the tips here and have included the following print screens, I am hoping that someone can help me as this is a nightmare for me. I'm a total Noob at this sort of stuff and have tried to follow the instructions but am not getting something right.

First i downloaded the Windows performance tools and there is a screen shot of this, then I downloaded xperf but when I try to run the commands in CMD i get the response in the cmd screen shot. Also I have changed the value in regedit as described to 1.

please help and explain in laymans terms to me as i can not do the trace to get the help needed to sort it.

also in cmd i can not change it to c:\temp as it says its not a correct internal or external command

also when looking further into this thread another user was told to do this :- ( have you installed the wpt_x64.msi from the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0\bin? ) only i cannot find this in program files

hope you can understand this and help!

Thanks in advance

Tony

[firedragon]

oh yeah sorry here is my system profile

Thanks

Tony

[MagicAndre1981]

you must open the cmd.exe as admin:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/How-do-I-run-an-application-once-with-a-full-administrator-access-token

[firedragon]

you must open the cmd.exe as admin:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/How-do-I-run-an-application-once-with-a-full-administrator-access-token

im the only user set on this pc, wouldnt that make me the admin?

[firedragon]

you must open the cmd.exe as admin:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/How-do-I-run-an-application-once-with-a-full-administrator-access-token

im only user and account set to administrator on the pc. what am i not doing right?