Sometimes you may notice the laptop running very slow and check the task manager there is a process called system Idle process using up to 100% of CPU on Windows 10. So you are wondering to stop the system Idel process, to fix Windows 10 high CPU usage? Let’s understand What is System idle process and how to disable the system idle process in windows 10.
What is System idle process?
The System Idle Process is, as the name suggests, just a measure of how much free processor time your computer currently has. So, if System Idle Process is taking up 99 percent of your CPU’s time, this means that your CPU is only using one percent of its processing capability to run actual tasks. To see the System Idle Process in action, open Task Manager (press CTRL-SHIFT-ESC) and click on the Details tab. Sort by CPU when your PC isn’t doing much and the System Idle Process should be at the top ‘using’ most of your CPU’s resources.
Can I disable System idle process?
As discussed, the Ideal process means nothing, when your Windows system process is at 99% or even 100%, it denotes that nothing is using your windows resources. So If your PC runs normally, just leave it. But If your PC is slow down, here solutions apply to fix Windows 10 High CPU usage.
Windows 10 High CPU usage
First of all, We recommend, temporarily disable antivirus software, (If installed) and check if the system running smoothly.
Run system optimizer like CCleaner to clear junk, temp files and optimize system performance. That should help to fix Windows 10 slow performance.
On the start menu search type check for updates and press enter key to check and make sure the latest Windows updates are installed on your system.
Perform Windows 10 clean boot and check if the laptop running smoothly. If yes there is some startup service conflict causing Windows 10 High CPU usage.
Disable Startup Services
Some services, related to the System Idle Process, such as Windows Update, Superfetch can be the culprits of the high CPU on Windows 10. Temporary stop these services and check if this helps to fix Windows 10 High CPU usage.
- Press Windows + R, type services.msc and ok
- This will open the services console, scroll down and look for Superfetch
- Right-click on Superfetch select Properties,
- under General, locate Startup type and then set Disabled for it.
- Now click stop the service and apply ok to make save changes.
- Do the same process for BITs and Windows update service.
- Now check Windows 10 running smoothly, there is no more 100 CPU usage.
Make Sure Windows Have Latest Drivers Installed
Device drivers play a major role in Windows system performance. And you must have the latest updated drivers installed on your system to run Windows 10 smoothly. So If the installed driver software is corrupted or incompatible with the current Windows 10 version you may face slow performance. We recommend check and update driver software especially for Graphics cards, Network adapters and any other removable disk drive.
- To check and update the driver software (example display driver) on Windows 10
- Press Windows + X and select device manager,
- You just have to find the device which is yellow marked.
- Right-click on the device and select update driver software and follow the instruction to get driver updates.
- if you didn’t find any update for the driver you can uninstall it from here.
- Download the best driver for the specific device from the manufacturer’s website and install it.
- Repeat these steps for all drivers that you want to update.
- Restart Windows after update the driver software and check now its function smoothly.
Adjust Windows 10 Performance
Animations and various cool transitions look good but each of which can toll on your PC’s CPU and memory which can cause your PC to slow down. Windows lets you optimize the effects for the best performance.
To optimize Windows 10’s performance,
- Go to Control Panel and in the search box, type “performance”.
- From the search results, click on “Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows”.
- Here on the Performance tab choose the option, “Adjust for best performance under Visual Effects.
- Also, you can select “Custom’ and remove the individual animations you are not interested in.
- In the “Advanced” tab, you can even choose to allocate processor resources for the best performance of either “Programs” or “Background services”.
Disabling Windows 10 Tips
Additionally, it appears that, in some cases, the notification system is at fault for the high CPU usage, and some users recommend disabling the Windows 10 tips from the very beginning to avoid this.
- Press Windows + I to open the settings app,
- Click System then Notifications & Actions
- Here simply Turn off the toggle that says “Show me tips about Windows.”
- If you’re already familiar with Windows 10, you should have no problem at all.
Upgrade RAM or Adjust Virtual Memory
This is another option available to users who wish to overcome the issue of high CPU usage. Every system has a maximum capacity for RAM ports. For the ones using 2GB RAM, they can check for another port to install the RAM manually, and so on, as this solves the problem of high CPU usage successfully. or you can Adjust virtual Memory to fix issues like High Memory Usages, low Memory etc.
Repair Corrupted system files
If Windows system files corrupted or missing you may experience High CPU usage or Slow performance. Run system file checker utility following steps below. That helps to restore them with correct ones and run Windows 10 smoothly.
- From start menu search for command prompt,
- Right command prompt, select Run as administrator,
- At the command prompt type sfc /scannow and press enter key,
- This will scan all protected system files, and replace corrupted files with a cached copy that is located in a compressed folder at %WinDir%System32dllcache.
- Let the process complete 100% and restart windows.
- Check if this helps to fix the Windows 10 High CPU usage problem.
Also run DISM restore health command DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth that helps to service and prepare Windows images, including those used for Windows PE, Windows Recovery Environment (Windows RE) and Windows Setup. You can read more about DISM from here.
Did these solutions help to fix Windows 10 High CPU usage problem? Let us know on the comments below, also read:
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