Windows 10: CPU usage remains ~50% when idle, "Antimalware Service Exec" as the main culprit

Hello everyone,

First things first, some of the basic specs on my laptop:

• 4 gb of ram
• Intel i7 7500U core
• Radeon R7 GPU
• 64 bit operating system

Going into a bit more detail on the issue: Yesterday noon after having used my computer since early morning with no issues, while in a videocall, my display suddenly turned off and then the audio on the call cut off. Lastly, the audio jingles for when you insert and take out a device from the usb ports suddenly played. I had to do a hard shutdown since everything else was unresponsive.

When I booted it up again, my CPU usage started spiking just from using the Firefox browser. I decided to do a reboot, but no change, just a few seconds after it boots up, CPU usage rockets upward.

As I mentioned in the title, the main process taking computing power, even when idle, is "Antimalware Service Executable", keeping it around the 50s; just running a browser keeps it at a steady 60-70%, and going into a videoconference which is my daily bread as a student gets it to a 100%.


Any help/advice would be appreciated!

:)

 

Antimalware Service Executable High CPU

I am experiencing high CPU usage on the Antimalware Service Executable on my Surface Pro i7 1 tb (2017). This has been going on for a couple of months. It makes my computer almost unusable. The CPU sits at 100% any time I try to use it. The CPU has
over 50% usage when nothing is being run in the foreground all the time (24 hours a day). The April update was just installed and the Antimalware Service Executable is still running at over 40% of the CPU utilization.

 

antimalware service executable HIGH CPU USAGE

every time i open any application, the CPU usage always spiked, and the culprit is always antimalware service executable, it alone can eat from 20-60% CPU usage and drain the computing power and battery power from my laptop. i have no choice but to turn
off Real time protection to be able to work properly. but it leaves my security wide open.

it's absolutely annoying to have to pick between security and performance. can you fix this annoying thing and make RTP use as little as possible the CPU usage or as rarely as possible doing the scanning thing, instead of every time i use any application.

 

How fix 4-times-higher CPU usage at idle?

Progress!

To: Ten Seconds; simrick; RoadBlaster

Thank you all again. I'm making Progress now! I didn't want you guys to think I'd abandoned and discarded all the work you've done on my problem. Here's where I am and some questions. I should have more info in another day.

simrick: thanks especially for your link to a "clean boot" write-up in the Forum . I'm now working on what I believe is the right step in this write-up, step 11.

The progress is that my clean boot was OK, with only 1% CPU usage at idle. So I feel a lot better I' can fix my 40% CPU usage at idle by the process of elimination of good services and good startup programs, so I find the bad ones.

But I'm still working to find out if there are problems in my screen shots of the list of all non-Microsoft services. I'm suspicious because I see a many exact duplicate service names, plus an believable number of these services running.

Could someone answer these 3) questions?:

1) Am I correct that stopping any of the remaining (non-Microsoft) services will Not shut down my PC during clean boot reboots (since all the Microsoft services are running)? But, for example, are things like Chron Service (by Fork, Ltd.) or Intel(R) Capability Licensing Service (by Intel(R) Corporation) exceptions that I need to leave alone?

2) So would posting a list of all non-Microsoft services running help me pick ones to test first (and/or help me to more quickly find the problem service(s) running than just using the write-up's half-group process of elimination?)?

3) Should I expect that only 1 of these services will show the 30% jump in CPU usage at idle of my PC vs the 10% CPU usage at idle of our normal PCs? (My PC CPU usage at idle is 40% MINUS our normal PCs CPU usage at idle of 10% EQUALS 30% jump) Or could it be multiple services I need to gauge?

Thanks once more. I'll post again this weekend.