100% CPU Usage & 100% Disk Usage

[Breems]

Hi all,

I'm having a bit of trouble with Windows 8 on my laptop (I've named my laptop Romulus for future reference in this thread). First off, let me give you a brief history on Romulus' journey thus far:

1.) Bought pre-built from ACER with Windows 8 64-bit installed.
2.) After playing around with it for a bit, I formatted the C drive (deleting all partitions) and installed Windows 7.
3.) Hoping to test out the new Windows 8.1, I reinstalled Windows 8 (a clean install from Microsoft this time... not the original bundled version from ACER). I have yet to install 8.1.

This is where I've noticed a few problems. Specifically, my CPU and Disk usage keep spiking to 100% for no apparent reason. Literally right after booting Romulus, before running any programs/apps, I see these spikes. I boot up, go straight to the desktop, fire up Task Manager, and watch sadly as the performance graphs tease me with those tall lines. The CPU spikes only last for a second or two and usage generally stays pretty low, but I'd still like to know why it's jumping like that. Disk usage spikes to 99-100% more frequently and stays there a bit longer. I've noticed perhaps very slight performance problems and some mouse lag, but I haven't been able to prove a correlation here.

Regarding drivers, these problems arose without any drivers installed (straight Windows 8 installation). Thinking the obvious, I installed all of Romulus' drivers listed on the ACER web page for this model, but the problems persisted. Although performance isn't really being hit, it's driving me absolutely nuts knowing these spikes are occuring. I've only had the PC for a few months now, so I believe the drive is in good shape (some diagnostic tools and chkdsk confirm good health). I'm also 99% sure no virus is involved.

I've seen threads like this all around (for disk usage, mostly), but rarely do I see the problem of spikes with both CPU AND disk usage. I'm fairly fresh into the Win8 install, so anything is an option. I've considered formatting the drive and reinstalling Win8; last time, I simply inserted the Win8 disk while running Win7 and it started the install from there, so could someone inform me of whether or not that method actually formats the drive?

EDIT: Thought I might add that I've monitored CPU & disk usage in Task Manager and during times of 100% usage, there are literally only a few processes/services running. They usually account for less than 1MB of disk usage.

 

[exscentric]

Couple of ideas till the brains show up with better ideas Find and shut off indexing and see if it stops. If not go to task manager and shut down running items one at a time and see what happens.

 

[Hopachi]

Welcome tho the forums, Breems!

It seems you've just installed it so it's normal for the performance and indexing services to do that. The system tries to learn your program usage pattern beginning with activity from the superfetch service.

Look in Task manager and count all CPU usage up -> see what processes are those involved; do the same for disk.

Scan Romulus with Windows Defender or whatever antivirus program you prefer: if you're clean: leave it alone, give the system a few days and after a couple of more programs installs and restarts, things will settle down.

If you upgrade now to 8.1 there is no big deal, the system will continue the same routine.

If you enable .NET 3.5 in features or after .NET updates including the latest 4.5, some .Net optimization service will also use more CPU or disk than normal but it's just for a while.

 

[Breems]

Welcome tho the forums, Breems!

It seems you've just installed it so it's normal for the performance and indexing services to do that. The system tries to learn your program usage pattern beginning with activity from the superfetch service.

Look in Task manager and count all CPU usage up -> see what processes are those involved; do the same for disk.

Scan Romulus with Windows Defender or whatever antivirus program you prefer: if you're clean: leave it alone, give the system a few days and after a couple of more programs installs and restarts, things will settle down.

If you upgrade now to 8.1 there is no big deal, the system will continue the same routine.

If you enable .NET 3.5 in features or after .NET updates including the latest 4.5, some .Net optimization service will also use more CPU or disk than normal but it's just for a while.

Thanks for the reply! I wasn't aware of performance/indexing features that ran automatically like that. That would certainly explain the usage, but I still find 100% spikes to be strange. I'm also still worried about the slight mouse lag occuring randomly, but I'll just hope that's a product of the indexing.