Windows 10: High CPU Usage & System Lockups (Taskhostw.exe)

Over the past few months, I have been getting constant Windows 10 lockups. Even when my pc is idle, I will find that everything will become unresponsive for about 5 - 10 seconds and the Hard drive light turns solid red.

I look at Taskmanager and it says that my PC is using 100% CPU but does not show which process is causing the issue, disk and memory are all normal.

I have recently performed a clean install of Windows 10, removed everything and started again. Everything was okay for a little while but the issue started again and I have no clue what could be causing it.

All drivers updated, I have tried to disable Runtime Broker to no avail. Games lockup.

I have run Perfmon /report and it shows that Taskhostw.exe is using 98% of my CPU. I have checked taskhost on process explorer and comes up with a few crazy looking threads.

My virus scanner comes back as all clear and I have had a pc shop do a diagnostic and everything seems fine internally, they suggested reinstalling but made no difference.

I will try to attach a few Images of the things I have found #.

If anybody has any ideas as to what might be causing these lockups, I would be extremely grateful.


Thanks, J



:)

 

"System" process with high CPU usage

I have exactly the same issue (high CPU usage) on a brand new HP ProBook 440 G5 (i7-8550U, pre-installed Win 10 Pro).

I am pretty sure that there is a problem with audio drivers when the computer wakes up from a sleep mode. I first observed that process flow.exe (audio bloatware provided by HP/Conexant) was consuming (after waking up) ~10–15 % CPU. Here's what I did:

• I have updated Windows to 1709, build 16229.251 and installed all updates --> Nothing has changed.
  
• I have updated BIOS to the latest version provided by HP. --> Nothing has changed.
• I have run Windows troubleshooting and HP Support Assistant checks --> No problems found, nothing has changed
• I have manually updated Conexant ISST Audio Drivers (via Device Manager -> Update drivers). Windows installed a newer version. -->
  CPU usage by flow.exe has disappeared, but process called System in thread ACPI.sys+0x21cb0 started consuming ~20 % CPU.
• I have uninstalled all Conexant software&drivers and manually installed generic High Definition Audio Device drivers provided by Microsoft (Driver Date: 21.02.2018). --> ACPI.sys+0x21cb0 still consumes ~20 % CPU.

Same issues are discussed in these threads on HP site:

• https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/ProBook-450-with-high-CPU-usage/td-p/6520063
  
• https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Noteb...-Fan-issue/m-p/6567212/highlight/true#M442639

The result is I cannot use sleep mode (as advised by this post:
https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Business-Notebooks/ProBook-450-with-high-CPU-usage/m-p/6611446/highlight/true#M149605).

 

svchost.exe / service host : local system ( network restricted ) high usage memory and CPU

When you open Task Manager a little bit, you’ll see that svchost.exe service host: local system (network restricted) is causing the problem of high CPU usage. To improve your Windows performance, and get rid of the high CPU usage, you
have to disable Superfetch service. Superfetch used to pre-load data from hard disk into RAM memory. So let's follow this steps.

Fix svchost.exe service host: local system (network restricted)

 

System and compressed memory high CPU usage

hi, Adrian check this System and Compressed Memory Service High CPU Usage on Windows 10.

Answer to your question can be found on this page.

{FIX} System and Compressed Memory Service High CPU Usage on Windows 10. - wintips.org - Windows Tips & How-tos

Cheers!