GPU usage over 90% when idle

[DyHaglar]

I am experiencing GPU usage over 90% and temperatures over 70 degrees while idle. I believe this is due to a virus (possibly a BitCoin miner) using up my resources. Any help on how to fix this or find the root of the issue would be amazing!

 

[nitrium]

I am experiencing GPU usage over 90% and temperatures over 70 degrees while idle. I believe this is due to a virus (possibly a BitCoin miner) using up my resources. Any help on how to fix this or find the root of the issue would be amazing!

1. Close all known running apps.
2. Push ctrl-shift-esc (assuming you are using Win7) to open Windows Task Manager.
3. Click the Processes tab, and find the app using up your resources - the offending app will invariably also be using a significant amount of CPU cycles and RAM.
4. Right click Properties on the item from the pop-up to find its physical location on your system.
5. End the process by again right clicking on the process and selecting End Process from the pop-up.
6. Navigate to the folder shown in 4. with Explorer and delete the app (probably a .exe file).

 

[DyHaglar]

No processes appear to be using up too much of the CPU, the usage is hopping between 6-18% though. Memory used is at about 48%. No games are running either, though I have a few apps running to monitor usage and services.

 

[nitrium]

No processes appear to be using up too much of the CPU, the usage is hopping between 6-18% though. Memory used is at about 48%. No games are running either, though I have a few apps running to monitor usage and services.

Close ALL superfluous apps, i.e. everything that you know might be consuming RAM and/or CPU. There is NO WAY that something utilizing 90% of your GPU will not also be using SIGNIFICANT amounts of system RAM and CPU cycles. Scroll through the processes in Task Manager as I detailed in my previous post, and find the process that is utilizing anything >1% of CPU (a truly idle system should have near 0% CPU utilization).

 

[1zacster]

There is a program I used to find a bitcoin miner. It is called "process explorer" Here is a link to download http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx Right click the top bar above the list of processes and hit "select columns". Go to the tab "Process GPU" and then tick gpu usage. Scroll the list over a little bit then click the gpu usage and check what process it is. If you still can't find it tick the rest under process gpu and look for one with an obscenely high amount of usage.

 

[DyHaglar]

No processes appear to be using up too much of the CPU, the usage is hopping between 6-18% though. Memory used is at about 48%. No games are running either, though I have a few apps running to monitor usage and services.

Close ALL superfluous apps, i.e. everything that you know might be consuming RAM and/or CPU. There is NO WAY that something utilizing 90% of your GPU will not also be using SIGNIFICANT amounts of system RAM and CPU cycles. Scroll through the processes in Task Manager as I detailed in my previous post, and find the process that is utilizing anything >1% of CPU (a truly idle system should have near 0% CPU utilization).

After using Process Explorer I found an svchost.exe that seemed to be using up quite a bit of my GPU. I killed it and now the usage is at 0% with spikes anywhere from 14-60% every few seconds or so. CPU/RAM usage are the same.

 

[nitrium]

After using Process Explorer I found an svchost.exe that seemed to be using up quite a bit of my GPU. I killed it and now the usage is at 0% with spikes anywhere from 14-60% every few seconds or so. CPU/RAM usage are the same.

Spikes of CPU usage are normal. In fact just moving the mouse can use easily use >5% CPU (and more if you have a high polling rate)! As for that svhost.exe file that might have been the cause of your problems, if you'd hovered over it in Process Explorer (before closing it) it will show a popup that tell you which services are associated with that particular svhost.exe instance, which should help you track down the offending service causing you your problems. If you reboot your PC the high GPU usage will probably resume. You need to shut down and disable the service (using services.msc) that is wasting your system resources.

 

[Smok3r]

I don't know if anyone thinks this is relevant, but i had the same problem, i really twigged on it when i upgraded to my GTX 760 and had the same problem as my old 550Ti... i didn't really think much of it at first with the 550 because it was old, so i just overclocked until the card drivers crashed and reset, then it worked fine til restart. But i've noticed that the Newest NVIDIA drivers are what's doing it, i uninstalled them with Driver Cleaner Pro... then installed the version of the drivers from the disk that came with my Card... and it's working fine, i've posted a thread on the NVIDIA forums, just waiting on a response now...

 

[smeezekitty]

If you are using Windows 7 or newer, the you can use process explorer or process hacker to show which processes are using GPU time