[SOLVED] Ridiculous CPU usage

[pieter-carlier]

I've recently noticed that my games and various other programs such as Chrome use up more of my CPU than before.

PUBG for example had me on 50-60% total just a few months ago and now it alone amounts for 70-80% of my CPU usage when I'm playing it. As a result I'm hovering between 90-100% CPU usage and that is without Discord, Chrome or any other programs. Same thing with Dying Light. I didn't test any other games.

I will say that I have no idea how long I've had this issue since I've mostly played League of Legends these past few months and even though the CPU usage during this game seems way higher than it should be, it never reaches 100% so my computer wouldn't lag out unlike during the other games.

Iv'e been troubleshooting these past few days with Task manager open on my second screen and noticed that even Chrome would make my CPU usage spike to 100% for a few seconds.

Iv'e tried:
High performance and balanced power setting -> nothing
Driver updates -> nothing
Vsync on/off during the games -> nothing
Various other graphics settings -> nothing
Doing a full Windows Defender right now scan but I don't really expect anything to show up there.

A buddy of mine has about the same setup as me without any issues and so it shouldn't be a case of needing to upgrade the processor.

Any input would be gladly appreciated. I've already prepared a bootstick to perform a clean install this weekend if I haven't been able to identify the problem by then.

Gigabyte Geforce GTX 1070
16GB RAM
Intel I5-7600k not overclocked
Asus Prime Z270-P
Windows 10 Home Edition

 

[scout_03]

virus and malwares scan without network .

 

[Ralston18]

And check available drive space.

Ensure that the drive is not filled/filling up. Not beyond 70% capacity + or - a percent or two.

 

[pieter-carlier]

@scout_03: this is the next thing I'm going to try after the full scan but I really don't think malware is the problem.

@Ralston18: Drive space isn't the issue, I have 40-50% space still available

 

[Ralston18]

Try Resource Monitor to delve deeper.

 

[pieter-carlier]

I feel kinda stupid, but the Windows Defender scan did reveal a Trojan, despite my Avira performing scans on a weekly basis. Guess who got uninstalled 5 seconds later...
Before this I also restored some defaults regarding my power plan and in Nvidia Control Panel though I don't know if this had any effect.

PUBG and Dying light were still both using my CPU until 100% but my temps don't really exceed 60 degrees celsius. I've read that this isn't necessarily a bad thing in that case.

I've yet to further test if my computer still lags when Chrome is open on my second monitor (with a twitch stream going) and with Discord running.

 

[scout_03]

does your avira have a strartup module to scan computer before it boot to os for chrome check all extension you have in .