100% CPU Usage in Windows 10? Here’s How to Fix it

We’ve all been there. You turn on your PC, and instead of getting straight to work, you’re faced with horrific slowdown and loud-running fans. Hit Ctrl + Shift + Escape , and you will see that your CPU usage is inexplicably at 100%.

It’s a common problem that’s, luckily, not usually too hard to solve. Here are several fixes for the 100% CPU usage problem.

WMI Provider Host Using 100% CPU

The WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) Provider Host is a core service on Windows 10 that links up with various software on your PC to send it information about your operating system. In other words, it’s a very important process, and you shouldn’t disable it lightly. If, however, you see in the Task Manager Processes tab that it’s using a lot of CPU, then of course you should do something about it.

The first thing you can try is restarting the WMI service. Go to the Services app. (You can get there quickly by typing services in a Start menu search). Scroll down to Windows Management Instrumentation, right-click it, then click Restart.

If that doesn’t work, then the next solution is a little more intricate but also has the potential to offer more long-term solutions for your CPU woes.

If your 100% CPU usage is being caused by the WMI Provider Host process in Task Manager, then you can delve deeper into the problem. Press Win + R ,then open “eventvwr.” Here in the pane on the left, go to “Applications and Service Logs -> Microsoft -> Windows -> WMI-Activity -> Operational.” This will show you all the processes that the WMI Provider Host is dealing with.

Check the middle column, “Operational,” look for errors in the service, then under the “General” tab below that, check the “ClientProcessId” number. This should help you zoom in on the app or process clogging up your WMI Provider Host service.

Go back to Task Manager, click the “Details” tab, then sort the processes by “PID.” Find the process with the error, right-click it and click “Open file location.” This will give you an idea of what software the process is attached to and whether you can reinstall it, uninstall it, update its drivers and so on.

There may be multiple errors like this in the WMI Provider Host, in which case you should repeat the above process to address the different errors. It’s also possible that just one app/process has been hogging your CPU all this time, in which case you should be good to go after you’ve dealt with the culprit.

Disable Superfetch (or Windows Search)

Superfetch is a process by which Windows 10 learns which apps you use most often, then pre-fetches them for you so they load quicker each time you use them. It’s a constant background process that doesn’t usually cause problems, but it doesn’t always play nice with older devices.

To find out whether Superfetch (or another service) is hogging your CPU, open Task Manager ( Ctrl + Shift + Escape ), click “More details,” then click “CPU” to order processes by how much CPU they’re using.

If you see that a “Service Host” like Superfetch or something else is using a lot of CPU, you can try right-clicking it and clicking “End process.”

Alternatively, to disable it permanently (or until Windows switches it on again, which can happen after you update the OS), press Win + R , type services , then in the Services window scroll down to Superfetch.

Right-click Superfetch, click Properties, then in its Properties window click the drop-down next to “Startup type,” click “Disabled,” and OK.

You can technically do this to any service that’s hogging CPU, but some services are system-critical, so you need to be careful. Another culprit of high CPU usage is “Windows Search,” which you can safely disable, too.

Reset Your Power Plan

Twiddling around in Windows’s power options can have a substantial effect on your PC performance. If you’re set to “High performance” – particularly if you made tweaks to the “plan settings” – then it’s possible that you’re overloading your CPU. (Again, older devices are susceptible to this.)

Type power plan in the Start search ,bar then click “Choose a power plan.” If you’re on “High performance” or “Power Saver,” then switch to “Balanced.”

For extra certainty, click “Change plan settings,” then on the new screen click “Restore default settings for this plan.”

Check Your Power Supply

This one’s an issue that can affect both desktop and laptop Windows 10 users. If you have a faulty power supply (the mains cable on a laptop, the PSU in a desktop), then it can automatically start undervolting your CPU to preserve power. When undervolted, your CPU can function at only a fraction of its full power, hence the possibility of this manifesting as 100% CPU usage on Windows 10.

To solve this on a laptop is quite simple: unplug your laptop from the power cable, then click the battery icon at the bottom-right corner of your Windows 10 desktop -> Battery Settings -> Power & Sleep Settings -> Additional power settings, and select High Performance. If the issue was with your power supply, the CPU usage should return to normal in the task manager ( Ctrl + Shift + Esc ).

On a desktop things can be a little more complicated, as you’ll need to physically remove the PSU from your PC and test a different one. We recommend going through our other tips listed below before trying this.

Disable Third-Party Antivirus Software

This one may be a bit contentious, but our view here is that if you’re using antivirus software on Windows 10, then you’re probably putting unnecessary strain on your CPU (particularly if its older). It doesn’t usually hurt to have the extra security, but you probably don’t need it.

Every year we write an in-depth feature about Windows 10’s onboard security software, Windows Defender, and every year it gets better and better. At this point, it’s more or less on par with the best antivirus software out there.

Don’t be afraid to disable your third-party antivirus software to see if it helps your CPU usage. If it does, then uninstall it, because Windows Defender should really have you covered.

With high CPU usage, it may be running pretty hot, too, so we’ve put together a bunch of ways you can bring the CPU temperature down. The WSAPPX process can also cause high CPU usage, so click through for our guide on how to address that.

Related:

Content Manager at Make Tech Easier. Enjoys Android, Windows, and tinkering with retro console emulation to breaking point.

How to Fix High CPU Usage

Is one process eating up nearly all your CPU’s resources? Here’s how to fix high CPU usage. 1 2

Is one process eating up nearly all your CPU’s resources? Here’s how to fix high CPU usage. 1 2

Highlights:

The central processing unit (CPU) is a PC’s brain. All of the system’s major components, like the graphics card and RAM, rely on the CPU’s instructions. This makes a properly functioning processor a critical part of every gaming PC.

When a game stutters or crashes, open applications stop reacting to new inputs, or programs open at a snail’s pace, abnormally high CPU usage can be the cause. Let’s go over the steps on how to fix high CPU usage in Windows* 10.

1. Reboot

First step: save your work and restart your PC. “Turn it off and on again” is classic troubleshooting advice for a reason. This may resolve the issue, especially if it’s been a long time since you last restarted — a reboot can clear out temporary files and potentially resolve slowdown in long-running processes.

2. End or Restart Processes

Open the Task Manager (CTRL+SHIFT+ESCAPE). If a program has started climbing in CPU use again even after a restart, Task Manager provides one of the easiest methods for tracking it.

Note that full-screen programs like games will sometimes take focus away from the Task Manager (hiding it behind their own window). To prevent this, click “Options” in the top menu bar, then select “Always On Top”. If you have a second monitor, you can also just drag the Task Manager window over there.

Once you’re in the Task Manager, click the Processes tab at the top. Click “More details” at the bottom of this tab to reveal background Windows processes. Look for the “CPU” column near the top of the Processes tab and click it to order by CPU usage:

You can expect high CPU utilization when playing some games, running a video-editing or streaming application, performing an antivirus scan, or juggling many browser tabs. If you’re dealing with this kind of everyday high-CPU usage situation, you should close all background programs and tabs you aren’t using, then return to Task Manager and see if the situation has changed.

It’s important to remember that high CPU usage while multitasking can be normal. Modern CPUs handle multitasking situations by splitting processes between multiple processor cores, which work through different sets of instructions simultaneously. Intel® Hyper-Threading Technology (Intel® HT Technology) takes it a step further, creating multiple “threads” of execution in each core, each of which handles different processes. If the CPU usage of a heavy-duty program like Adobe Premiere is high, it may just be efficiently using the CPU cores available to it.

Intel® Turbo Boost Technology can also help processing of heavy workloads by dynamically increasing the frequency of your CPU. Intel® Core™ X-series processor family have another tool to help avoid slowdowns, as their Intel® Turbo Boost Max Technology 3.0 automatically assigns the biggest tasks to your fastest processor cores, as well as boosting the frequency of those cores.

These processor technologies can greatly increase the speed of multitasking and using demanding programs, but abnormal CPU usage situations can still arise. If you see a background process with a name like Runtime Broker, Windows Session Manager, or Cortana at the top of the CPU column when you hit 100% CPU usage, then you have an issue.

These Windows processes are designed to use very little of your processing power or memory under ordinary circumstances — you’ll often see them using 0% or 1% in Task Manager. When your PC is idle, all of these processes together will usually use less than 10% of your CPU capacity. However, buggy or unexpected behavior — for example, one Windows process trying and retrying to perform a search action that has been disabled elsewhere — can sometimes cause a process to eat up nearly all of your system’s resources.

After you’ve opened Task Manager and found the process unexpectedly using up a chunk of your CPU, search online to identify it. You don’t want to stop a process like explorer.exe (which manages many graphical elements like the desktop and Start menu) or winlogon.exe (startup tasks and the CTRL+ALT+DEL screen), unless you have a good reason.

Once you’ve identified the process as non-critical (and, again, checked that you’ve saved whatever you were working on), click on the process to select it, then click End Process at the bottom right of Task Manager. End Process will cause the program to terminate without saving.

Task Manager High CPU Usage

My laptop used to have a moderately high performance with i7-4712HQ, 16GB RAM, Samsung Evo750 1TB SSD, GTX850M.

Now I suffer from serious system delay for a period. One symptom I noticed is having slow speed opening file explorer (would need to wait for like 3 seconds after clicking on the icon). Another major symptom is stated as the subject.

Sometimes, when I experience a slow performance and I want to check what’s using up my hardware resources, the task manager would often take more than 5 seconds to display anything, and not responding periodically. Sometimes it shows my cpu usage to be 100%, where the first three apps (sorted by cpu usage) cost no more than 15% and others are all below 10% (I doubt they will add up to 100%). My system will be super laggy with the cursor respond to the mouse with 1 sec delay, not moving smoothly. I wonder if there’s anything wrong with the system, or just my laptop is out of its life? Although I’ve only used it for 3 years.

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The specifications of your device are higher end.

Can help to disable all programs running simultaneously with Windows in the Task Manager by clicking the Startup tab found there but I suspect you may have already done this.

The history of your device might be responsible for it’s slower performance. Was it upgraded to Windows 10 from 7, 8, or 8.1?

What version and OS build are you running?

There’s nothing like performing a Clean Installation of Windows 10 and reformatting the SSD anew to revive performance.

If you need to preserve your files you can perform the Custom Installation of Windows 10 This will save them to a Windows.old folder.

There is also a Reset option and a Start Fresh option within Windows 10 for starting over.

Have you run a CHKDSK /F on your SSD?

Those are some thoughts.

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I have the same issue. I noticed if I click the task manager it take quite awhile to open up. If I sort by Name, it hangs for 10 seconds are so. Sorting by other columns is faster but it still hangs.

When this happens, the mouse lags too. I have unplugged all external devices except for the mouse and keyboard, and the CDROM and it still happens.

Virus scan does not find anything.

I suspect it might be related to the Windows 10 Creators edition update that recently happened.

I have a 6-Core Xeon E5-2620 with 40GB of RAM and SSDs for primary hard drives.

Needless to say, this is drive me nuts.

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I have this exact same issue, as Charles mentioned the mouse lags and hangs for a couple of settings when sorting by names.

Sometimes it decides to hang for that exact time just by opening task manager without sorting, I’ve not found a common cause to the issue but it seems to happen a lot when I have memory hungry applications open.

It does indeed drive me nuts also.

I’m running windows on an SSD and have a 6700k and I’m also loaded with 16gigs of DDR4 so this can’t be a hardware issue I wouldn’t think,

I don’t know how more people aren’t experiencing this, I guess a lot of people don’t use task manager enough to notice.

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The Windows Creator update created other issues for me too. I use Dragon NatuallySpeaking and after the update it would not work. I tracked down the issue to my anti-virus software Webroot.

I made modifications based upon this article and it corrected the Dragon issue and somewhat improved the above reported issue but, it did not correct the issue completely. I am careful not to have task manager and a web browser open at the same time.

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Your reply is absurd (sorry).

I have an Alienware i7 new laptop with Windows 10 Pro.

It suffers from the problem — when the task manager is started, NOTHING works for minutes. Almost completely unresponsive!

The mouse cursor doesn’t barely moves. I have to find the cursor using cursor sonar, then make a swipe movement toward the window exit control wait for it to move (30-60 seconds each time), finally getting the cursor positioned on the X and THEN press the left mouse button and wait for taskmgr to exit.

Have to close the taskmgr to make it stop.

I have another i7 laptop a Qosmio from Toshiba that has the exact sample problem as several other machines running Windows 10 Pro. All have this problem. All BUT the Alienware is a upgrade to Window 10 Pro. In the upgrade case, the problem only surfaced around Oct to Nov not immediately after the upgrades.

The problem seems likely to some update to Windows 10 Pro subsequent to its initial release.

Microsoft needs to do a better job replicating this problem and fixing it.

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Performance issues in Windows devices are usually occurring due to software conflicts. For us to provide an effective solution, we would need you to answer the following questions:

• Which build of Windows 10 Pro is installed on the devices that are affected by this issue?
• Are you experiencing the same issue even when the devices are on clean boot mode?
• What changes have you made to the device before the issue occurred?
• Is the issue happening to all of the user profiles in the devices?

In the meantime, it will be best to make sure that your Windows is up to date. Let us know if the same issue persists after installing Windows Update.

We are looking forward to your response.

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I could replicate this issue systematically in clean boot mode on two Win10 Pro 1709 machines (one assembled PC, one Asus Transformer Pro): after clean boot, launch TM in detailed processes view, then fire up several browsers and watch Windows take the dive.

Win10 Home, on a third machine, was less affected by this problem. But here too, there are many performance issues, with many third-party software I must use. And the only real solution I found was to revert to Win 8.1.

Strangely enough, I could not replicate the issue on a Microsoft Surface. I didn’t try hard, though.

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We appreciate your cooperation in resolving this concern. We are still looking forward to the response of other community members in this thread, for us to verify if reverting to Windows 8.1 will also address the issue on their devices.

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winver gives: 1709 OS Build 16299.192 — this is a new Alienware machine not three months old.

I have changed no hardware.

It happens with both the admin or a normal user login.

BTW: I do NOT have a microsoft account associated with these users (not that it SHOULD matter).

This suggestion is silly:

In the meantime, it will be best to make sure that your Windows is up to date. Let us know if the same issue persists after installing Windows Update.

How is it possible to NOT have Window 10 be updated over any length of time?

When it first obtained the machine, this problem with the taskmgr freezing the system did NOT happen. I suspect IS to some Window 10 enforced updated.

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Your PC performance might have been slowed down due to a possible hardware issues or a corrupted system file. As suggested previously by Darleen Pen last February 11, 2018 on this thread, performing a clean boot would be a big help in determining if there are any possible 3rd party programs that might be affecting the performance of the computer specially if some programs got corrupted which can be determined by enabling each service one by one after each restart. If the slowdown happens when enabling one of the services, a reinstall or removing the program from the system could fix it.

In the meantime, keeping your Windows up to date specially to the latest build would ensure that any known issues on the system would be addressed by updating to the latest build which you can download and install manually on the Microsoft Update Catalog database.

We would also like to clarify if have you tried optimizing the performance of your Windows? Because there are cases wherein outdated drivers, low disk spaces, programs running on the background, or at times viruses and malwares can be one of the many reasons that could be the cause of the slow down.

If you you’ve already performed those troubleshooting, then the next one that can be done is ensuring that your current user profile is not corrupted. You’ll be able to determine that by creating a new user profile and naming it as Test. In this process, what’s being tested is the PowerShell of the current user profile or if is it the system files that are causing the slowness. If this re-occurs on the Test user profile, then a Sytem File Check (SFC) Scan is the next step to perform in addressing this as this would not only be doing a file check, but also try to fix any system file that it detects broken.

If you have further questions, please feel free to reply to this post.