I have a once/day situation where my cpu suddenly gets very busy, and I need an app that will tell me which process is the culprit. REQUEST - If you know of an app that will do this simple task quickly, please tell me the name & link. MUCH appreciated. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ P.S -- My AV is not the culprit. I set it NOT to do any scans except by my say-so. Its sig updates are very low cpu users. P.P.S. I have System Guage & it does this task. However, for this situation, it's too slow to load & update its data.
... and sort the cpu column descending. I'm usually able so to catch apps/processes which peak cause.
Process Lasso You could use Process Lasso (free or paid) for both information on CPU usage and possibly to tame an unruly app. with ProBalance. https://bitsum.com/
do you use Google Chrome by any chance? If you do, read the below article and use method 3 at the bottom to disable the Software Reporter Tool: https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/software-reporter-tool/
This is my first choice. Or Process Explorer. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/process-explorer
First of all, on my machine it's often system.exe that sometimes causes my CPU to become busy but this happens mostly when the system is idle. I also keep Vivaldi in memory for hours and this also sometimes causes the CPU to spike, obviously this is done by vivaldi.exe. But anyway, to answer to your question, TinyResMeter is the best tool to monitor the system in realtime. It will show you which process uses the CPU the most, besides RAM usage and network traffic. I have been using this app for 15 years or so on Win XP, Win 8 and Win 10. http://pesoft.com/trm/us_trm.html https://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/TinyResMeter.shtml
Bitsum is crap for this. and i dropped sysinternals because of its VT connection which is seriously nonsense here. processhacker.sourceforge.io have in mind that almost any antivirus will kill the download because of "kprocesshacker.sys" which is clean! when extracting it put exception on the folder (or file), it is vital for proper functioning otherwise it crashes. p-hacker is much more advanced than process explorer i forgot, i use the nightly v3 https://processhacker.sourceforge.io/nightly.php v2 can work without the sys file.
@Brummelchen -- (1) What is VT connection? (20 (2) I forgot about Process Hacker. Thanks for reminding me. I grabbed it. LOTS of uses! @Rasheed187 -- I tried TinyResMeter per your suggestion. At only 51KB for the portable, it's an amazing little utility. I got it to show overall CPU usage data but I couldn't get it to show cpu usage by process. Will work on that when I have more time for tweaking. @Adric -- resmon.exe tried to load & run but it's bolloxed somehoe. I will seek to download a working one from MS in a day or 2. Based on suggestion by @stapp & others, I found the guilty app via Task Manager -- namely, svchost. I scanned it and also made sure it was in the correct location. It's clean. Apparently, some of the specific types of work that I occasionally must do cause my old laptop's svchost to become really really busy. It does cause just a bit of momentary sluggishness on my aging laptop, so I wanted to find out why. The fix is obvious & easy to do -- upgrade my computer. This situation would be no problem on a newer computer, & I have a splendid one that has MUCH more cpu power & RAM. I bought it new, just 3 months ago, as a stand-by to my aging laptop computer. It's still in its box, sitting on a shelf in my ukulele room. However, like me, my aging laptop computer just keeps on going, despite its antiquity. So.... I shall live with it. Thanks to everyone for your fast & friendly help.
From the point of using Process Explorer as a handy way to see what is the top hog for cycles, enable CPU, IO and GPU history tray icons, then set it to minimise on close so you keep the tray icons running. Hover over them to see which task is heaviest. svchost.exe is not actually the thing eating the CPU cycles. If you look at the tasks in process explorer you will see that tasks are show in a parent/child tree format, so you can see which task belongs to another task or service. Something that svchost is managing is the culprit. If you have process explorer display the CPU and IO history bars in the main display (drag them over to be near the CPU numeric column), you can see which tasks and sub tasks are the likely problem. Process Explorer (like many sysinternals tools) has an optional feature to use VitusTotal to see if anything you have running is flagged. Can't imagine why anyone would object to an opt-in security feature that adds no extra CPU load. Also seems to be one of the most sensible places to add such a feature, much like also being in their tool for managing all the startup items on your system.
You can also right-click on a svchost entry in the Details tab of Task Manager when it is showing a higher CPU and select 'Go to Services' Then look for the PID number which matches the svchost one you right-clicked on in the Details tab.
I used to like System Explorer too, but stopped using it after it unfortunately became apparent it had been abandoned about 6 years ago. No doubt it still works tho'.
virus total. and there is/was no opt-out the time i used it. process hacker has an option for it. is responsible for any kind of service, like DNS, Firewall and much more. doubleclicking the file in precesshacker/process explorer -> obe tab "services" will reveal you the right service behind. as noticed there is NO opt-out, process explorer wants immediately access to the web to check files, thats not acceptable.
Yes it's one of my favorite apps. And of course you can simply use a tool like Process Explorer or Win Task Manager, but why I recommended TinyResMeter is because when you select the TopCPU window, it will show which process is using most of the CPU time, so you will immediately know which one is the culprit. I always put it on top of the screen and of course I have enabled the ''stay on top'' setting. I monitor RAM, CPU, disk and network activity. See screenshot.
@Brummelchen there is no opt-out because it is opt-in. You have to enable or disable it from the menu or it does not work. If in your experience it is on by default, then previously it has been used on your system and enabled thus remembered that setting. To upload unknown samples with it, actually requires that you use your VT API key, which it cannot magically guess. The upload function only stays enabled for the session and has to be switched on every time you load it. Not only that but it requires choosing the option in the menu twice so you can't accidentally enable it. If you don't like it don't enable it. Very simple.
