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Central memory is loaded at 100. Solving problems with unreasonable processor load

Most often in our practice, the main reason for CPU load reaching 100% is overheating. Many users do not know that dust getting into the radiators of cooling systems can significantly reduce the performance of devices. When a processor overheats, it goes into throttling mode, starts skipping clock cycles, and performance decreases.

To check the processor for overheating, look at the temperature of the processor without load and under load. We compare these temperatures with the maximum permissible declared by the processor manufacturer. The maximum permissible temperature can be found on the processor manufacturer's website in the specifications.

Viral activity

When there are a lot of viruses on a computer, this also reduces system performance. Viruses, like regular programs, consume processor resources, this can lead to 100% CPU load. I talk a lot about virus removal in my YouTube channel, and be sure to read and follow. After completely cleaning your computer from viruses, there will be no problem with CPU load!

Driver problems

Another reason for CPU load is system interrupts, in other words a problem with the drivers. I recommend doing the following: boot your computer in safe mode and see if there is an increased load on the processor. If there is no load, there is a very high probability that the reason is in the drivers, because the drivers do not load in safe mode! The simplest solution to this problem is to remove all the drivers and then install one driver at a time and see if the CPU load appears, as soon as the download starts - you have found the culprit.

Most often, the culprit here is network cards + universal drivers from Microsoft, which are installed immediately when installing Windows. I recommend downloading and updating all drivers from the official website of your equipment manufacturer. I showed how to do this.


Elementarily weak percentage that doesn’t work ツ

For some reason, many people think that their ancient processor should still run fine and without any brakes. But this is not so, now digital technologies are developing very quickly and sometimes budget processors of just two or three years ago are no longer capable of anything today. Even if you have a top-end processor from 10 years ago, this does not mean that it can cope with modern tasks. Perhaps this is where the heavy load on your processor lies, think about it. If you are not sure, ask other owners of the same processor how it works for them in the same tasks. Often they bring computers to us and say: my video on the Internet has started to slow down. We look at why this is happening and it turns out that the new video codec does not support the old processor. We explain this to the client, but he doesn’t believe it and motivates it by the fact that 2 weeks ago everything was working for him, but now it’s slowing down. The problem was that the site on which he watched the video had switched to a new video encoding method, which heavily loaded the old processors, but gave a higher quality video picture.

Autoload full of junk

Another problem that occurs for inexperienced users is that startup is heavily clogged with unnecessary applications. After all these applications are loaded (the computer will take a very long time to load), they load the processor with their activity. Startup needs to be cleaned, you can even remove everything from there except the antivirus and programs that you actually use. You can do this through the program in the startup section or write MSCONFIG in the search and go to the startup section and disable what is unnecessary.

Antivirus activity

The hard drive is loading the processor

The hard drive can load the processor up to 100% under some conditions. Most often this is due to the fact that the disk begins to fail. I wrote about this in detail in the article -. Follow all the recommendations and your disk and processor will probably stop loading up to 100%.

Problems with peripheral equipment

Disconnect everything from your laptop or PC, leave the bare minimum (mouse, keyboard, monitor). Then connect all the necessary devices one by one and check the processor’s reaction. Perhaps this way you will find the culprit of this problem. I also recommend paying attention to the device manager to see if there are any installed devices with yellow or red icons; this means either there are no drivers or they are not working correctly. As I wrote above, this can create a load on the processor.

A huge number of running processes

Everything can be simple and trivial, perhaps you just launched too many applications at the same time and the processor simply can’t handle it all. The processor may be powerful, but everything has a limit. Open the task manager (CTRL+ALT+DEL) sort processes by load per percent and stop/disable the heaviest processes. If you don’t know which process is responsible for what, you can look up information on the Internet. I will show you more in the video on this page.

Some processes cannot be tracked through a regular task manager (these may be viral processes), then download and check all processes with it, you can also check the process for a digital signature, as well as for viral activity!

Svchost.exe is loading the processor!

With the svchost.exe process, not everything is so simple, there are 2 options: either it is a viral activity or a system process is actually loading the processor. If the load is created by a virus process, then most often it can be seen through Process Explorer; it will be launched as an administrator or from your account. It is enough to simply stop the process and clean it from viruses. If svchost.exe is really a system process, then try disabling automatic Windows updates in services and also try turning off the antivirus, it may conflict with other software.

In the vastness of the RuNet, I found another interesting method, but you can use it only at your own peril and risk! Find the Prefetch folder, located in the C:\WINDOWS\Prefetch section and delete it. Then find the Tasks folder (C:\WINDOWS\system32\Tasks), open it and delete all files from it. Now launch the task manager, delete the entire svchost.exe task tree, and then restart the computer. I talked about this folder in the article about the load on the screw.

Lack of power supply

Well, the last thing that can cause an unnatural load on the processor is the power supply. If the power supply does not supply enough power to the computer, the processor can be loaded up to 100% of simple tasks. I recommend checking the power supply and all computer hardware using .

Often the computer starts to slow down due to processor load. If it so happens that its load reaches 100% for no apparent reason, then there is reason to worry and you need to urgently solve this problem. There are several simple ways that will help not only identify the problem, but also solve it. We will look at them in detail in this article.

The CPU load sometimes reaches 100% even when you are not using complex programs or running games. In this case, this is a problem that needs to be detected and solved, because the CPU does not simply overload for no reason. You can do this in several simple ways.

Method 1: Find and eliminate the process

There are times when users do not encounter a problem, but simply forgot to disable a resource-intensive program or are currently running some task. The load becomes especially noticeable on older processors. In addition, hidden miner programs that are not detected by antiviruses are now gaining popularity. The way they work is that they will simply consume your computer's system resources, hence the CPU load. Such a program is defined in several ways:

If you couldn’t find anything suspicious, but the load still doesn’t drop, then you need to check your computer for a hidden miner program. The fact is that most of them either stop working when you launch the task manager, or the process itself does not appear there. Therefore, you will have to resort to installing additional software to bypass this trick.


Please note that it is recommended to use this method only in the case of non-system files, otherwise, deleting a system folder or file will cause problems in the system. If you find an incomprehensible application that uses all the power of your processor, then in most cases it is a hidden miner program; it is better to completely remove it from the computer.

Method 2: Virus cleaning

If some system process is using 100% CPU, your computer is most likely infected with a virus. Sometimes the load is not displayed in the Task Manager, so it is better to scan and clean for malware in any case, it certainly won’t make things worse.

You can use any available method of cleaning your PC from viruses: an online service, an antivirus program or special utilities. More details about each method are written in our article.

Method 3: Update Drivers

Before you start updating or reinstalling drivers, it is better to make sure that this is the problem. Switching to safe mode will help with this. Restart your computer and switch to this mode. If the CPU load has disappeared, then the problem is definitely in the drivers and you need to update or reinstall them.

Reinstallation may only be required if you have recently installed a new operating system and, accordingly, installed new drivers. Perhaps some problems arose or something was not installed and/or the action was performed incorrectly. Verification is carried out quite simply, using one of several methods.

Outdated drivers can cause conflicts with the system, which will require a simple update. A special program will help you find the necessary device for updating, or this can also be done manually.

Method 4: Cleaning your computer from dust

If you begin to observe increased noise from the cooler or involuntary shutdown/reboot of the system, braking during operation, then in this case the problem lies precisely in the heating of the processor. Thermal paste could have dried out on it if it has not been changed for a long time, or the insides of the case have become clogged with dust. First, it’s better to clean the body of debris.

When the procedure does not help, the processor is still noisy, heats up, and the system turns off, then there is only one way out - replacing the thermal paste. This process is not complicated, but it requires care and caution.

In this article, we have selected four methods for you that will help solve the problem of constant 100% CPU load. If one method does not bring any results, move on to the next, the problem definitely lies in one of these common reasons.

One of the most common and least understood problems is CPU usage. 100 percent of its work is taken away by incomprehensible processes and services, which makes using the computer extremely difficult. Why is this happening?

CPU utilization is 100 percent. What to do?

Quite often, computer owners may observe deterioration in performance, delays in response to user actions and other problems after some time of continuous use. Some of the most common reasons that can lead to this include the CPU becoming completely overloaded with obscure running processes. The simplest advice is to restart your computer. In some cases it can help. You can advise reinstalling the system, but this is the most extreme method, already included in the category of anecdotal recommendations on most technical forums.

The most common reasons for increased CPU load

There are quite a lot of people who are concerned about this issue. And they are all looking for an effective solution to their problem without using drastic methods. And to do this, it is necessary to understand the reason that could lead to such a situation. If you turn to forums where questions related to such computer behavior occur quite often, you can identify the most common situations:

  • Running a program or process that uses increased computer resources.
  • System malfunctions.
  • due to accumulated dust and insufficient cooling.

Identifying problems and solving them

In order to determine why the interest occurs, you will need to carry out a number of diagnostic procedures. Once the cause has been established or there is reason to choose one thing, you will need to take the actions necessary to eliminate it. Details of what needs to be done in each specific case are discussed below.

Determining the program that loads the processor

The first thing to do when your computer starts to slow down and respond poorly to mouse commands and other actions is to open the task manager. To do this, you can simultaneously hold down the key combination Ctrl, Alt and Del or Ctrl, Shift and Esc, or call the context menu in the taskbar area and find the corresponding item in it.

In the window that opens, you need to select a detailed view so that tabs appear, among which will be the one we need - “Processes”. In it you can see when the CPU load is 100 percent. What to do next in this case?

The tab will display a complete list of all processes that are currently running in the system. By default they are sorted alphabetically, but you can select the CPU usage column to determine which one is causing the problem.

Quite often it happens that a massive program that requires a lot of resources does not unload correctly after closing. As a result, processes remain running and the processor load continues. In this case, just click on the “End task” button to solve the problem. In this regard, rebooting the system, which was recommended at the very beginning, may be effective. Roughly speaking, during it the same removal of tasks occurs. In addition, additional resources are freed up that you may not notice on your own.

The list of processes may also contain unknown ones that were not there before. Moreover, they can also take part in loading the system. This behavior is typical of viruses, so it would be good to know the names and characteristics of the processes that are constantly running on a particular system, and periodically check the list of running ones for suspicious activity.

System malfunctions

The first method does not always allow you to determine the reason why the CPU load is 100 percent. What to do in this case? In practice, it may turn out that the entire load falls on the “System inactivity” item. And in this situation it will not be possible to cancel the task.

The recommendation in this case would be to run the utility, which is distributed by Microsoft completely free of charge. presents an expanded picture of what the task manager is showing. In the situation under consideration, the processor load may be 100 percent due to system interrupts, which in this program are designated as Interrupts. It is difficult to say what exactly is the reason for this behavior unless additional steps are taken.

What can load the processor in the system?

Incorrectly written drivers often lead to this problem. Booting the system using safe mode will help identify this. If the CPU is not experiencing the same load, then with a high degree of probability the reason is in the drivers. You need to look for their new versions, provided directly by the manufacturer of the computer or laptop.

Also, various viruses that have settled in it can lead to such behavior of the system. In this case, you need to run a system scan with antivirus software.

Problems with connected devices may also result in 100 percent CPU usage. What to do about this? The advice is pretty simple. It is enough to disconnect everything from the computer, leaving only the most necessary minimum set of mouse, keyboard and monitor. You should also look into it to check for possible problems there.

If these tips do not help solve the problem, you will have to reinstall the system. It’s good if during the work process rollback points are created to which you can restore if the system was working properly at that time.

Dust accumulation and overheating

Often, loud operation of the cooler and an increase in processor temperature can help determine why the CPU load reaches 100 percent. As a rule, this indicates that it is high time to clean the computer or laptop from accumulated dust and dirt, and replace the thermal paste. This also leads to slowdown and failure of the system. It is recommended to clean at least once a year.

Overloading the processor of a computer or laptop can be caused by a number of reasons - from technical obsolescence of hardware to viruses that load the system.

High CPU usage in itself is not a problem. All resources can be consumed when launching games, ultra-high quality videos, video editing applications, archivers, and antivirus checks. First of all, you need to check whether the processor is really overloaded or whether other problems are causing the slow operation.

Press Ctrl+Shift+Esc to open Task Manager and click on the CPU column to sort. You can also get to the dispatcher by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del and selecting the desired item in the menu that appears.

Normally, a task list should look something like this. When the load is high, one or more tasks will consume most of the CPU time. If one of the applications takes 50-100% of its power constantly, this may be a symptom of a problem.

For example, in the screenshot, almost half the power of the i5-2500k processor is occupied by the “Task Manager” and system interrupts, which should not be the case.

Hardware causes of overload

Despite popular misconception, it is rarely the cause of CPU overload. The processor is more likely to cause the system to reboot or freeze completely than to operate at 100% power for a long time. However, such cases sometimes occur and the user needs to know how to protect themselves from them.

Outdated equipment

The most common cause of processor overload is an aging PC or laptop. Software does not stand still: if five years ago a single-core processor with a couple of hundred megabytes of RAM was enough for comfortable operation of Google Chrome, now several heavy tabs can use the resources of several cores and several gigabytes. In 2018, for comfortable work you will need a 4-core processor with 6-8 gigabytes of memory.

If you don’t have money for new hardware, try to follow these tips:

  • Don't run multiple applications at once. This not only makes it difficult for the processor in itself, but RAM that is filled to capacity creates additional load;
  • If possible, use older versions of programs. Yes, it may be inconvenient and unsafe, but older versions of applications will be much less demanding;
  • disable unnecessary services and programs in startup. This can be done in the “Startup” and “Services” tabs of the “Task Manager”;
  • try to avoid situations in which the processor will be loaded at 100% unnecessarily. For example, don't open many browser tabs or 4K videos on a small laptop screen.

Overclocking

The next situation that can cause overload is overclocking or overclocking. There is nothing wrong with overclocking the characteristics of devices in itself; all major manufacturers provide programs for adjusting the operating frequencies of the processor and video card. However, exceeding processor limits may result in:

  • overheating;
  • image artifacts;
  • errors and application crashes;
  • freezing;
  • 100% CPU load for trivial tasks.

Here, to check, you should use diagnostic utilities that record the results in the log. For detailed statistics on all components, MSI Afterburner is suitable.

CPU overheating

High temperature itself rarely causes overload directly; more often it destroys the processor or triggers mechanisms that reduce the frequency and voltage on the device to protect it. You can view the sensors in AIDA64.

How to solve the overheating problem?

  • Clean the system unit case from dust. Pay special attention to the heatsink and processor fan. For a laptop, the cleaning procedure should be carried out at least once every one and a half to two years;
  • If the computer has been in use for two years or more, remove the thermal paste between the fan and the processor cover. Apply the new one in an even layer;
  • if standard cooling cannot cope or the cooler does not work, replace it with a more powerful one. Preferably with a massive aluminum radiator with copper tubes;
  • Do not block the ventilation holes of the system unit when installing it in place.

Note! The normal temperature of a working processor is about 40 degrees, at 70-80 the BIOS protection mechanisms are activated.

Software causes of overload

It is much easier to get 100% CPU load using software than using hardware - you just need to make a mistake in the antivirus scan settings or download a program that is incompatible with the new system.

Antiviruses and viruses

Of the entire list of reasons for possible problems that lead to 100% processor load, problems most often arise with antiviruses. Real-time file checks are a resource-intensive task that can take forever if configured incorrectly.

On weak computers, installing a cloud antivirus, like Panda Cloud Cleaner, will help. It is much more demanding on the quality of the Internet, but the load on the processor is minimal.

In Windows 10, you can use the built-in Defender, which is quite sufficient for home tasks.

The other side of the coin is viruses on an unprotected PC. Malicious programs can use your computer for mining or as a gateway for DDOS attacks. For one-time cleaning of existing problems, use the Dr.Web Cureit utility!

Automatic update

The cause of the overload may be a failed update of the operating system or drivers. Such problems occurred in 2015 among users of beta versions of Windows 10. To solve the problem, try installing different versions of drivers, rolling back updates through a system restore point, or disabling them completely.


In Windows 10, disabling updates has no visible effect on overload protection.

Background applications

A number of programs run in the background to support their functionality. For example, Skype and LibreOffice are permanently in RAM for quick loading. In some situations, this can become a problem - for example, when a program hangs in the background and takes up half or all of the computer's resources.

You can also disable a background application in the “Task Manager” by hovering the mouse cursor over the selected running application and using the “End task” button.

Video - CPU usage 100 percent, what to do on Windows 7,8,10?

The processor is a key element in a PC; data is processed through it. Any program or application loads the processor to one degree or another. The less the processor is loaded, the faster and more stable the system works (files, folders, and applications open quickly). Therefore, it is very important that the processor is not 100% loaded and has free resources to process the necessary tasks.

Main reasons for maximum load

There may be several reasons for the maximum CPU load of 100% in Windows XP, 7, 8, 10, and each has its own solutions. Most common cause– this is the consumption of all processor resources by a certain program or service. It could also be a malfunction in the service that causes it to begin to behave unstably.

Many people do not attach much importance to cleaning their PC from dust and replacing thermal paste, which leads to overheating, thereby putting a greater load on the CPU.

To make sure exactly what is causing the high CPU load, you need to run a number of diagnostic procedures to identify it.

Determining a program that loads the processor

To reduce CPU load, you can use Task Manager. You can get into it different ways: press Ctrl+Shift+Esc or Ctrl+Alt+Delete at the same time, or go through the start menu to the taskbar context menu and find the manager there.

When the task manager is open, you need to go to the " Processes", which will display the processes and services of the system. For convenience, you can sort them by clicking on the column at the top " CPU" or " CPU"(different versions of Windows vary).

And after these manipulations, you can see which program or service is loading the CPU. It often happens that “heavy” programs (which consume a large amount of PC resources) left after closing residual services or applications that are not terminated correctly, thereby affecting the performance of the computer. Browsers often do this. In addition, high-quality videos that a PC simply cannot handle can often load and slow down your work.

You can solve this by clicking LMB (left mouse button) on the application that is consuming CPU and clicking “ Cancel task", thereby removing the program from the PC resources. You have to be careful here because There's a possibility terminate some system service and then you will have to manually restart the computer.

CPU usage for no reason

It happens that in the standard Task Manager utility, processes that load the CPU are not visible, but the processor is still loaded at 100 percent for no reason. In such cases, you can contact third party programs.

Download and run the AVZ program. Go to "Tools/Process Manager" there will be all processes are shown running on the computer. Main advantage AVZ is that the program marks system processes in green. Those. You should take a closer look to see if there is a process called svchosts.exe, which is colored black.

If no third-party processes are detected, then you can try disable automatic updates Windows.

To disable updates, you need to go to the “ Services", the easiest way is to press Win + R, write services.msc in the window that appears and click "Ok". In the window that opens, find the line “ Update centreWindows", double-click on it and select "Startup type" - Disabled, and click the "Stop" button below. Then save the settings and restart the PC.

CPU load due to overheating

The key parameter for stable operation of a computer is its temperature. If the CPU begins to overheat, then the user notices unstable system operation, freezes, blue screens and sudden PC shutdowns.

To find out the CPU temperature, you should use third-party programs, for example Aida 64.

The computer may overheat several reasons:

  1. Pollution. A computer or laptop requires constant cleaning (every 6-12 months), because during use dust accumulates in it, which impairs the operation of coolers and heat transfer of the radiator, thereby contributing to overheating.
    Solution: Take the computer to a service center to have it cleaned, or open the side cover yourself and carefully but thoroughly remove all accumulated dust. (If you are the owner of a laptop, you will have to take it to the service center)
  1. Cooler malfunctions. The main task of the cooler is to continuously supply cold air to the radiator to cool the CPU. If it malfunctions, the computer begins to overheat. You can verify the malfunction yourself; you should open the side cover of the computer and see if the cooler rotates normally (are there any creaks or crackles)
    Solution: If the cooler is really faulty, you should immediately contact the service center for its subsequent replacement.
  1. High room temperature. This problem is very relevant in the summer, it is hot at home and outside, therefore, the cooler will draw in hot air. Because of this, its cooling efficiency decreases significantly.
    Solution: You can open the side cover of the computer yourself and point a regular fan there. Special cooling stands are produced for laptops.

Outdated PC

New technologies are moving forward very quickly, the computer sphere is one of them. Every day updates are released for various programs, and every year standard programs begin to consume more and more resources.

If at startup standard application(browser, paint, viewing photos) CPU usage becomes 50% or 100% and does not decrease, then most likely it’s time to update the PC configuration.

Startup applications

Many people use their PC for years without reinstalling Windows and clearing it of programs. Over time and the installation of certain applications, the system's autostart gets clogged and when loading the OS, programs are loaded that a person has not used for a long time. Because of this, the CPU may be constantly loaded, so this should be avoided clear "Startup"

There is a popular utility CCleaner, with its help you can remove programs, which you haven’t used for a long time, leaving only the most current ones and antivirus.