Question Can too many "handles" cause poor PC performance ?

[GooberOwO]

So, I've wondered why my pc was slow, I opened TM, and the number of handles is in the millions, Most of the processes are from windows (110) and the background (72), although I have a few apps open, I don't know what too many handles can do, but my pc is definitely slowing down, I've compared mine to a couple friends, and mine is approximately 6x higher then the rest, Provided screenshot will be below. Just for context, my specs are; CPU: Pentium N4200, GPU: Intel HD Graphics 505.

 

[TerryLaze]

You have a very low power CPU that's why it's slow, the number of handles is a normal amount.
It could also be that it is doing some Windows maintenance in the background, or you have some bitcoin miner, some of those tasks don't show up in task manager.
Go to the details tab, sort by cpu usage and show us a screenshot.

 

[GooberOwO]

You have a very low power CPU that's why it's slow, the amount of handles is a normal amount.
It could also be that it is doing some windows maintenance in the background, or you have some bitcoin miner, some of those tasks don't show up in task manager.
Go to the details tab, sort by cpu usage and show us a screenshot.

I have verified I do not have a bitcoin miner, Firefox, steam and discord use 80% in total, and TM and ShareX uses the rest, TM at 14%, ShareX at 6%.

 

[TerryLaze]

Yeah, just a slow CPU then.

 

[DSzymborski]

I have verified I do not have a bitcoin miner, Firefox, steam and discord use 80% in total, and TM and ShareX uses the rest, TM at 14%, ShareX at 6%.

You're simply putting a ton of strain on a decade-old CPU with a TDP of six watts.

 

[GooberOwO]

You're simply putting a ton of strain on a decade-old CPU with a TDP of six watts.

1. What is a TDP?
2. I've had this for multiple years, The only problems are the occasional blue screen (7/mo).

 

[DSzymborski]

1. What is a TDP?
2. I've had this for multiple years, The only problems are the occasional blue screen (7/mo).

Thermal design power. This is a very old CPU that was so low power that they used it in tablets.

It's hard to guess more as you've said very little about usage other than naming a few apps. Providing more screenshots would be helpful.

 

[GooberOwO]

Thermal design power. This is a very old CPU that was so low power that they used it in tablets.

It's hard to guess more as you've said very little about usage other than naming a few apps. Providing more screenshots would be helpful.

The computer rarely responds to screenshots, but even then, they mostly overlap, just like when chrome won't open and then 5 Mi-NoDe tabs spawn and crash your pc, I can't explain much more things about usage, all that i've said are the medians, Background Processes and Windows Processes, I've also found out what's causing the handles overload, Something called TPCtrlServer.exe, I do not know where it originated from, It doesn't seem to do anything else but create handles, (3/sec).
Is this safe to uninstall or will something happen to the computer..?

 

[Colif]

is that handle count normal for that PC?

It could be a handle leak, those only really solved by app maker.
last answer on link below will help id cause
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7846115/how-to-trace-handle-leaks

what is handle count after a clean boot?
Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

It doesn’t delete anything, it just stops non Microsoft programs running with start. Easy to reverse.

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

 

[GooberOwO]

is that handle count normal for PC?

It could be a handle leak, those only really solved by app maker.

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7846115/how-to-trace-handle-leaks

what is handle count after a clean boot?
Try a clean boot and see if it changes anything - make sure to read instructions and make sure NOT to disable any microsoft services or windows won't load right - https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

It doesn’t delete anything, it just stops non Microsoft programs running with start. Easy to reverse.

if clean boot fixes it, it shows its likely a startup program. You should, over a number of startups. restart the programs you stopped to isolate the one that is to blame.

I don't want to restart my computer, I'm busy in the process of something (transferring game data), to the cloud, It should be done in a couple hours, but all my start programs are either medium or low, not high, I also do not know how to do a clean boot, the only thing I know is how to reset a pc.

 

[Colif]

TPCtrlServer.exe,

have you run anti virus? Only result I find for it was from a user that got hacked months before.

wait, its part of windows... I think

What is TPCtrlServer.exe?

Information about What is TPCtrlServer.exe?

www.freefixer.com

Trying to work out what it does. Not much out there to identify it. Its behaviour is suspicious though.

I showed instructions in my post on how to clean boot. The link

almost unknown process makes me wonder if its an infection. Could be left overs from one.

 

[satrow]

That looks like a huge number of Handles for a relatively weak CPU and yes, it will cause slowdowns.

Worked on an HP once where it was crippled by HP's own 'utility' slothware adding #34k Handles on it's own -uninstalled those and the PC came to life again.

In Task Manager > View > Select Columns and then add a checkmark to Handles. Then you can list by the number of Handles and checkout anything that's near the top and non-Windows.

 

[Ralston18]

And I will ask about the disk drive(s):

Make, model, capacity, how full?

Drives exceeding 70-80% full can also cause problems....

 

[Flayed]

So, I've wondered why my pc was slow, I opened TM, and the number of handles is in the millions, Most of the processes are from windows (110) and the background (72), although I have a few apps open, I don't know what too many handles can do, but my pc is definitely slowing down, I've compared mine to a couple friends, and mine is approximately 6x higher then the rest, Provided screenshot will be below. Just for context, my specs are; CPU: Pentium N4200, GPU: Intel HD Graphics 505.

That does seem like a lot of handles. My task manager shows around 200k handles with firefox, steam and discord running.

 

[satrow]

I don't want to restart my computer, I'm busy in the process of something (transferring game data), to the cloud, It should be done in a couple hours,

Ah, then the (some/all?) excess Handles will have dropped as Explorer (at least) will have kept tabs open on all of that data until the job's finished.

I suspect a much more reasonable number of entries once completed, it'd be useful to see your stats once completed and again after a reboot.

 

[hotaru.hino]

Just so people are aware of what a "handle" is, it's simply a resource reference in the OS. What's considered normal depends entirely on how the computer was configured.

But would I consider 1.3 million handles too much? Probably. But it depends on what's going on in OP's computer. But is 1.3 million handles by themselves going to cause performance problems? Outside of using slightly more RAM (each handle is about 8 bytes) and maybe some slightly extra overhead processing, I don't think so.

 

[beyondlogic]

So, I've wondered why my pc was slow, I opened TM, and the number of handles is in the millions, Most of the processes are from windows (110) and the background (72), although I have a few apps open, I don't know what too many handles can do, but my pc is definitely slowing down, I've compared mine to a couple friends, and mine is approximately 6x higher then the rest, Provided screenshot will be below. Just for context, my specs are; CPU: Pentium N4200, GPU: Intel HD Graphics 505.

very low powered cpu is this a mini pc ? or laptop ?

how much ram do you have installed

and what are you running the os on ?

faster ram may help remove some of your issues