Task Manager - CPU usage at 22% is killing the PC

[carl55]

Hi Everyone!
I own an old but still working Lenovo G50-30 with 8 GB RAM, SSD and Intel Pentium N3540. Here are the specs with and w/o GPU:





- Control Panel energy settings are set at High Performance.
- Hibernation is used daily after the job hours
Windows 8.1 Pro - 6.3 (build 9600) x64 with all the updates.
- sfc scannow and DISM commands did not detect any system problem.

The issue is waking up from hybernation: sometimes and without any particular behaviour, the CPU usage at Task Manager stops at 22% and never changes, regardless of the notebook use.
When I see it appears very slow (in relative terms), 100% of the times is that issue. And effectively the G50-30 becames impossible to use; it's unresponsive. Curiously it's always a stucked 22%.
There is no solution but to restart the PC.
At the next boot, the Task Manager restores its functionality with CPU% fluctuating according to the tasks and the notebook is working regularly.

Why this issue? Any idea, please?

Thanks,
Carl

 

[billmcct]

I have always had problems starting up my systems from Hibernate.
I have always disabled Hibernate even on new systems.
Sleep works just as well and starts up faster.
If you want to disable Hibernate open a CMD window as Administrator and run the command:

powercfg -hibernate off

 

[carl55]

Hi billmcct!
Thanks for your help. The idea is acceptable: I will try to disable the hibernation and will report back in this thread whether the issue is gone.

 

[billmcct]

It also has the advantage of deleting the large file "hiberfil.sys"
giving you more disk space.

 

[carl55]

Unfortunately I had to restore the hibernation: putting the notebook to sleep for 12hrs without powering it with main power supply is not practicable. Its power battery is not enough for such a sustained sleeping period. So the net-net result would be a shut down after a few hours, anyway. If this the result, then it would be better to shut down the notebook regularly at the end of the regular job session instead of an unexpected shut down because of lack of battery... But shutting down is not the goal.
So the hibernation is the currently set again with powercfg -hibernate on.
Meanwhile I increased the free space in the SSD to 13%.

Will update later in the next few days whether the 22% issue is gone or not.

 

[billmcct]

I would let it sleep and see how long the battery lasts.
If hibernation is enabled, it will still go into hibernation
when the battery gets too low to keep powering the comp.

 

[americanpharaoh]

How to Use the New Task Manager in Windows 8 or 10

The Task Manager in Windows 8 and 10 has been completely overhauled.

www.howtogeek.com

 

[hroldan]

Windows 8.1 Pro - 6.3 (build 9600) x64 with all the updates.

+

The issue is waking up from hybernation: sometimes and without any particular behaviour, the CPU usage at Task Manager stops at 22% and never changes, regardless of the notebook use.

+

Curiously it's always a stucked 22%.

I had similar issues, I'll share some details that may help you.

Experienced something like that with my Surface after removing Windows 10 and installing Windows 8.1 x64, CPU usage was high and remained high. I tried diff things, including diff drivers, got it to updates drivers automatically, downloaded diff ones from the web, etc. This didn't solve my problem (but the drivers REMAIN relevant for this topic).

During my journey discovered multiple articles, forum threads, and personal web pages describing the same issues of cpu usage. The common normal situation was the usual scan and update of Microsoft Defender and malware search, this would use the CPU from time to time but eventually, even in the long term, stopped.

But my problem remained, and found myself in such a rabbit hole!!! I mean, it turns out W8 has a story of multiple issues producing high cpu usage, and followed diff tutorials disabling specific services and the cpu usage went down more and more, all of them were right. But still, the CPU usage didn't go down enough.

Here in the middle something happened and I messed up something, and I didn't want to install everything from scratch and disable things one after the other, so I decided to just download the stock recovery image from Microsoft and everything worked perfectly (on, off, hibernation, sleep, etc) with very low cpu usage (1%). I discovered the stock Windows is quite special (identified as Windows 8 core) and the original drivers are also different, these worked great used on other installs.

I'm not new to this, I had similar experiences with other computers where nothing worked as great as the stock drivers, the original ones coming with the computer, and downloading (even from the official brand) didn't work the same. I also upgraded my Surface to Windows 10, and I couldn't find drivers that worked the same, except forcing the update driver process to use the stock drivers (downloading from MS didn't have the same effect).

Long story short, try to find some recovery image for your PC, or explore the official (archive) Windows 8.1 core editions from the web.

 

[billmcct]

I looked up your battery and it has a 2600mAh battery.
My Hp only has a 2200mAh battery and I let it sleep sometimes well over 12 hrs.
I think you would be good letting it sleep.
I do use it plugged in so whenever I put it to sleep and unplug it, it is 100% charged.