Windows 10: Conexant APO Agent Causing Sound Input Issues, High CPU and Disk Usage, and Always Using...

Hello,


I noticed recently that the internal microphone system did not function properly on my HP Spectre x360 15-df0xxx running Windows 10 (v1903); the main issue was how it processed sound input. For example, when recording sound and then playing it back, it sped the recording up a bit, made it squeak, and sometimes there were crackling sounds in it. Additionally, the laptop's battery is draining faster than normal, the fans turn on frequently, even when the laptop is idle, and system experiences minor lags.


So, I go on task manager and find that Conexant APO Agent is the only process that is significantly consuming resources: using around 17% CPU and writing around 27 MB/s to disk. When I researched it in connection to the issues I was experiencing, I found that it indeed was the culprit (see https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Noteb...s-down-due-to-Conexant-APO-Agent/td-p/7223766).


So, I first reinstalled all my audio drivers. I tested two versions: the audio drivers that came from Windows update and then the newer ones from HP Support Assistant. The good news is all sound processing issues were gone (hopefully), but Conexant APO Agent still has a very high cpu and disk usage and still always uses my microphone (I don't know for what - scary -), thus draining my battery, on the two driver versions.


As I cannot explicitly prevent just CXAPOAgent64.exe from using the microphone on Windows, I went on msconfig => services => unchecked Synaptics Audio Service (apparently Conexant APO Agent is part of the Synaptics Audio Service, fun fact: Synaptics acquired Conexant Systems LLC) then restarted. This prevented Conexant APO Agent from starting and my system went back to normal; no fans constantly turning on and no high cpu and disk usage. This was all good until I tried playing a video on YouTube: 2 seconds in and it makes a popping sound then error message saying something about an audio failure. I immediately turned back on Synaptics Audio Service from msconfig and that solved that problem.


Other things I tried:

- Disabling audio enhancements for the microphone. As soon as I unchecked the setting, control panel froze until I closed Conexant APO Agent from task manager (yeah this Conexant thing is causing major problems all over my PC), makes sense because it's always using the microphone.


So in conclusion, I'm still stuck with Conexant APO Agent doing God knows what in the background, and don't know what else I can do. A safe, kind of temporary solution I found was just closing Conexant APO Agent from task manager (it reopens again immediately and goes back to using microphone but cpu and disk usage is lowered). Synaptics' website don't have a technical support contact email or anything (just sales stuff), so if anyone else has a similar issue or knows how to help, please advise. If, currently, there is no other possible solution to deal with Conexant APO Agent, then I want to raise this issue somehow so that the audio driver company responsible for using it on HP devices like mine can fix/optimise their driver. Also, could it be a Windows version issue?

Thanks,

Hassan

:)

 

Conexant APO Agent high disk usage

I have Windows 10 Enterprise 64 bit 1903 and I have always problem with program Conexant APO agent and his high disk usage. I have SSD and this program always write/read about 20 MB/s. Is any way how to stop it?

 

Conexant APO Agent high disk usage

Hi Jan

Many users have had the same problem with Conexant APO Agent, they have disabled / uninstalled that and that fixed the problem and their Audio still worked . . .

 

Conexant APO Agent high disk usage

Hi Dave,

I often kill Conexant. I tried find way, how to disable it, but without success. Do you have any advice?