Windows 10: I am having a very bad time with "High CPU at idle"

It's idling at about 20-50 percent CPU. Can you help me?

:)

 

High CPU Usage at Idle


You also might want to take a look at Dynamic frequency scaling (also known as CPU throttling). Under Windows 10, the CPU is throttled back to 5% when the computer is idle and then gradually goes back up depending on work load. Perhaps the minimum and maximum percentages have been somehow altered from their defaults of 5% to 100%. Or on the Advanced Settings Tab, it might be set to High performance.

To check, follow this path: Control Panel > Power Options > Change plan settings > Change advanced power settings.

Open the pull-down box and select "Balanced". On the list below, expand Processor power management > Minimum processor state.





Click on the word "Setting" and enter your desired percentage. The default is 5%. Note that if "High performance" is selected, the percentage is bumped up to 100%. This may be why your CPU is running fast. You can now retest using CPU-Z.

 

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


Sorry for the delay. Saw multiple requests for removing all Dell bloatware (very little bloatware, actually) and removed it. Then, a Windows 10 Cumulative Update (KB3194496) install request came, which I immediately allowed.

Thank you very much for time you took to provide very clear instructions and screen shots for me to use in applying your suggestions to fix my high CPU usage at idle.

Unfortunately, in my case these suggestions had no effect.

-I feel like I must have made an improvement on my PC by removing the ghost devices as you suggested, even though no reduction in idle CPU usage resulted. Because in my case there were over 50 such ghosts! I uninstalled them all, being careful not to uninstall non-greyed-out devices, then restarted my PC. The CPU usage at idle is the same. But great thanks for this suggestion; I'd never seen it before.

-I had already disabled all my Notifications prior to asking for help here, so there was no change.

-I disabled non-essential apps from the Startup tab in Task Manager (mainly Adobe and Java updaters) and rebooted. No change. ***I'd be happy to supply a screen shot of what is still enabled in Startup in case you want it. But all remaining startup apps I use daily and have for years; never give startup problems; have worked with Windows 10 forever.

-Removing the Dell bloatware also did not change my idle CPU usage situation after reboot. I left the Dell Touchpad and Dell Audio apps in because they're the only way to control touchpad and audio--tested drivers with Dell-branding.

-I was actually hoping the KB3194496 Windows Update would solve this high-CPU-usage-at-idle problem, but it didn't.

Thank you again. I really appreciate your help. I hope you can find the time to provide other suggestions, since on my own, I have not been able to find a suggestion that works.

 

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


Yes, I have noticed negative effects on my PC's performance:

-Browsing is slower when I open multiple tabs rapidly. I do this a lot (I research multiple links in online articles).

-My PC gets much hotter, and stays hot--so much hotter that I have to turn it off.

After the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, the 39% CPU usage screen shot of my Process Manager was when I was doing nothing--no browsing, word processing, etc. Before I took the screen shots, I closed all application programs. My machine was leveled out, as you better describe it (the screen shots were taken 5 minutes after my PC first leveled out). My PC is 39% CPU usage when leveled out; never lower.

Before the Windows 10 Anniversary Update, my PC was 10% CPU usage when it leveled out. And it stayed there.

1 other PC we have with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (same model as my PC) *HAS* the 39%-CPU-usage-at-idle problem.

2 other PCs we have with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (different brands) DO *NOT* HAVE the 39%-CPU-usage-at-idle problem. They have only 10% CPU usage at idle.

[NOTE I've no software to my PC after the Anniversary Update. My programs, etc. the are same as before.]

Any ideas on what to do to fix my high CPU usage?:
-use Process Explorer? (how do I use it in this case?)
-reinstall hardware drivers? (which ones?)
-suspend certain services? (which ones?)

I've seen comments suggesting each of the above ideas. I need step-by-step instructions (ideally screen shots) for Process Explorer. For drivers & services, which do I try?

Any ideas on the above possible fixes OR better fixes for my high-CPU-at-idle problem? I'd really appreciate them