Why so many processes running?

[Ole Anderson]

Running a year old Dell laptop, no applications running, yet at 25% cpu usage, task manager showing 133 processes running. Usually under 100. Is there a program that describes processes and allows you to remove them if not needed? I run Norton Security Suite, free from Comcast.

[John Terefenko]

How do you see this??? I would like to check mine.

[Rich Engelhardt]

If you run any flavor of Windows - press control /alt /delete and select Task Manager.

You can also right click anywhere on the task bar and select Task Manager.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

CPU usage at idle should stay between 0-3%. In Task Mangaer, click on "Processes" and see what's using the 25%.
If you're using Windows 8 or 10, I'd get rid of Norton and use Windows Defender. Imo, it uses much fewer system resources.

[Ole Anderson]

One of the many scvhost.exe system processes is steady at 25%. It is a 70k sized program. I typically don't run in administrator mode for safety, but that program only shows if you "show processes from all users".

[Tony Zona]

When I had Windows PCs, I would look in Task Manager as suggested here.

Then I would do a web search for any process I did not recognize. I cannot remember the web site with the best explanations because I have not looked for quite a while.

You will learn what are system processes and what are not. You can decide what to stop, or research further whether you should stop it. This helps you learn your system and when you check Task Manager in the future, you will generally recognize the tasks you can ignore and those that are suspicious.

I remember finding items running that were completely unnecessary. Some seemed to be left behind by uninstalled applications.

This process seemed a safe way to remove unneeded tasks. And, I never removed a task unless I was completely certain it was not needed.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

One of the many scvhost.exe system processes is steady at 25%. It is a 70k sized program.

Right click on it and select "Go To Service" and it should lead you to what's causing it.

[Mike Henderson]

This is a bit off subject but I've always wondered how they compute the percentage cpu utilization. Do they sample maybe 1,000 times a second and see who is using the CPU during that sample (actually, who was using the CPU before the sampling code kicked in)? Anyone have an idea how that's done?

Mike

[Bruce Page]

I ran Comcast's Norton Security Suite with my old XP pc and found it to be a huge resource hog. I went to some lengths to uninstall it and installed a less invasive virus protection. Performance of the XP machine immediately improved.

Even though Norton is "free" from Comcast, when I upgraded to a new pc I didn't even consider installing it.

[Jim Becker]

It could very well be the Norton suite...they and McAfee are resource hogs. For Win7 or Win10, Microsoft's A/V/AMW is perfectly fine and doesn't provide such a significant performance hit than those big, third party AV "pigs"...

[Tom Stenzel]

One of the many scvhost.exe system processes is steady at 25%. It is a 70k sized program. I typically don't run in administrator mode for safety, but that program only shows if you "show processes from all users".

My daughter bought a new Macbook pro, to help her buy it I bought her old Win 8.1 laptop. So instead of gloating about using Linux I now can commiserate with the rest of you. :)

If tinkering with the anti-virus programs don't help it's probably the Windows updater. Try setting the Windows update to Never and reboot. You can always turn it back on.

My wife's Win 7 laptop is unusable with the updater on, the CPU usage sits at 90% and higher. It gets updated manually when she isn't using it.

With the laptop I have now the updater consumes a bunch of CPU time for about 10-15 minutes after startup, then settles down. When I first got it the CPU usage was much higher until I knocked a bunch of the Toshiba junk software out. What I have now is at least tolerable.

-Tom

[Ole Anderson]

It could very well be the Norton suite...they and McAfee are resource hogs. For Win7 or Win10, Microsoft's A/V/AMW is perfectly fine and doesn't provide such a significant performance hit than those big, third party AV "pigs"...

I keep hearing that, but whenever I check, n360.exe (Norton) is using 0-2% of cpu, and then only briefly. When I end the svchost process tree, cpu gets quiet until it starts up again on its own and cpu goes back up to 25%. When I go to services for that particular svchost program it shows things like windows update (I am still running 7), windows management instrumentation, themes, task scheduler and several others. I did reboot and am "down to" 108 processes.

[paul cottingham]

Norton is a massive resource hog. Massive. That is where I would start.

Oh, and "Linux."

Someone was was waiting for me to say it.

[Roger Feeley]

Look in task manager for a service called diagtrak (sp). Try turning it off and see if your performance improves a lot.
diagtrak is a telemetry system that reports system stuff back to Microsoft. If turning it off temporarily helps, then you need to disable it from the services manager. But, there, it's called something like connected user experiences and telemetry.

dont trust me. Look it up. My hard drive was pegged at 100%. When I disabled the service, it went back to normal.

[Ole Anderson]

Roger, I don't see a service titled digitrak, but thanks for the lead.

Paul, if Norton is such a resources hog, wouldn't I see it using more than 2% cpu?

Again, the problem seems to be with one of the svchost programs running in the background at a steady 25% cpu utilization.

[Gerry Grzadzinski]

Svchost processes are windows services. If it takes you to windows update,then Windows update is probably the issue.

[Roger Feeley]

My experience was with window 10. I understand that MS put in the tracking in 2015 so that would be w8?
all I know is that one service which has nothing that immediately benefits me pegged my system drive.

im sure that ms had only the most altruistic motives but destroying the customer experience in order to measure the customer experience seems counterproductive to me.

[Roger Feeley]

I work for teletyne Lecroy and the are concerned that just about every anti virus software comes from Eastern Europe or China. The company has found no us made software that they like.

[Mark Blatter]

im sure that ms had only the most altruistic motives but destroying the customer experience in order to measure the customer experience seems counterproductive to me.

Now that is funny. MS being altruistic. Yeah right.

[Bert Kemp]

I tried turning off diagtrak and it would not let me:confused:


Look in task manager for a service called diagtrak (sp). Try turning it off and see if your performance improves a lot.
diagtrak is a telemetry system that reports system stuff back to Microsoft. If turning it off temporarily helps, then you need to disable it from the services manager. But, there, it's called something like connected user experiences and telemetry.

dont trust me. Look it up. My hard drive was pegged at 100%. When I disabled the service, it went back to normal.

[Tom Stenzel]

I forgot something in my first post. There's one more Windows service that no one mentioned: the hard drive indexer. That kept my wife's Win 7 Acer chattering away with a steady consumption of CPU time but a high disk usage that slowed things down. The only thing she could have needed indexing for is all the pictures she takes. She uses Light Room to keep track of those.

Plus it was indexing every file on the hard drive like DLLs and the browser cache, which makes no sense at all. Turning it off sped the computer up for her.

To turn indexing off was supposed to take "a few minutes", so said the popup after I stopped it. 4 1/2 hours later it finished, to me an entirely new definition of "a few minutes".

-Tom