CPU is running at 100% at all times all of a sudden

[nmessina05]

Hey everyone,
this is my first time creating a thread on here so forgive me if I leave out any crucial information. So I have a custom built PC that is less than a year old, and within the last few weeks, I have had extreme frame drops whenever I do anything. I checked task manager to see what was wrong, and it seems that whatever I am doing at the time (whether it is word, overwatch, even chrome) takes up 80%+ of CPU usage. I used to be able to have multiple things running with no problems and could play overwatch with 70-80 fps. Nothing was downloaded and I did a clean install of windows about a week ago thinking it was a virus. The problem is still there and I really have a hard time doing anything on the computer because everything makes the CPU usage hit 99 or 100% ! I have an AMD fx8350 btw, thanks!

 

[Obakasama]

You took the initiative of checking Task Manager (the first step in trying to find out what is slowing a computer down as far as I'm concerned). What process is using up the CPU? I would look through Task Manager a bit more. Alternatively, Process Explorer is a bit more indepth for such matters (would have to download it though).

To be on the safe side, a full anti-virus and malware scan is still worthwhile.

What are your thermal margins according to AMD Overdrive? Temperature of components is another thing to be aware of.

 

[nmessina05]

I have process explorer and system idle is almost all of the usage but the second I start using any other program, my computer starts getting terrible frames and cpu usage jumps up for that program. I did a malwarebytes scan and no threats were detected. For AMD Overdrive, the thermal margin is around 45-55 C.

 

[Obakasama]

I'd ignore system idle as that's just telling how much the CPU isn't being used.

If no viruses or malware then that at least means there shouldn't be any dodgy unknown processes in the background somewhere.

I would suggest the next thing would be to use something like MSI Afterburner and try to keep track of certain things with its On Screen Display option for games. Specifically things like CPU, GPU and RAM's usage and temperatures, fps and frametimes, and perhaps even pagefile usage. Try and note when fps drops and frametimes spike, and see if there's a pattern with the other readings.

For normal programs I would suggest looking into Task Manager or Process Explorer a bit more. Also, perhaps use something like HWMonitor to see what the voltage rails are to tentatively rule out a PSU issue.

Despite the reinstall of Windows, was there any particular event which may be related to the original problem occurring? As it is there's nothing obvious which suggests what you're experiencing has a specific cause.