My GPU usage is going 80-99% when nothings open

Lemonaids

Commendable
Jun 9, 2016
4
0
1,510
There is a problem with my gpu or something on my computer thats making my gpu skyrocket 15 minutes after starting up my computer. No startup apps are open except or afterburner and it still goes up to 90% for no apparent reason. This has made me not able to do anything but watch youtube at 480p instead of the regular 1080. Looking for some help because I feel like i've tried everything. I thought about reinstalling windows but I feel theres a better way to go about this.
 
Solution
Simplest answer to you is to reinstall windows. OR go into task manager and see what processes is using a lot of resources then end them one by one until you found which process is causing it.
Do a virus scan. Also try to post screenshots of the 'processes' and 'services' tab to get a better idea of what's going on.
You can try reverting the drivers as well.
 


Exactly, the process list should give you the culprit, it looks like some malware is using your machine to mine bitcoin.
 
I'd try reinstalling GPU drivers before Windows. But have you run an antivirus scan recently? Could be crypto mining software snuck in. Does task manager show any unusual processes, or any with correspondingly high CPU usage?

Edit: Wow I type slower these days.
 




What do you recommend I scan with? I use malwarebytes and nothing has shown up there.
 


I've done a virus scan and nothing has showed. I can post screenshots but there's alot of them so i'll probably just copy paste them into a post
 
A miner won't necessarily show up in a virus scan. Some are pseudo-legitimate bundleware. Like how toolbars try to shoehorn their way in with every other download. Here's one thing you can try, assuming you're running Windows.

Restart and bring up Task Manager by pressing ctrl-shift-esc.

Click on the "Processes" tab.

Maximize it so the entire list is visible, then take a screenshot by pressing the "prtscn" key on your keyboard. Open Paint. Paste, and save as blablah1.

Wait the 15 minutes or so until the GPU usage takes off, then check back on the Processes tab. Take another screenshot, save it as blablah2.

Compare the two screenshots. Look for any processes with high CPU, anything that has words like "coin" or "miner" in it, and anything suspicious in general.
 


I compared the two and there's no difference at all except with one I had google chrome open and one i didn't (I opened Google Chrome after the spike so it's not the reason) But thanks for the attempt
 
Simplest answer to you is to reinstall windows. OR go into task manager and see what processes is using a lot of resources then end them one by one until you found which process is causing it.
 
Solution