Why is my CPU Usage 100 percent all the time? How to reduce high CPU usage? I’m pretty sure I have a strong enough PC computer to not have this problem while my Windows 7/8/10 is idling and then I went on to check what actually caused the problem and found that it was the svchost.exe and msosync.exe hogging up all the CPU resources.
Though there are many more reasons for your CPU usage to go very high or just 100% all the time, we’ll explain and show you the fixes for two of the most common causes of CPU usage 100 percent.
CPU Usage 100 percent Windows 10/8/7 caused by other programs
It wouldn’t make sense to fix svchost.exe or msosync.exe if the root of the problem isn’t any of them. The very first thing you should do is to find out what program or service actually use up the CPU resource constantly.
To check this, simply bring up the task manager by right clicking your taskbar and select Task Manager, or via CTRL-ALT-DEL and then Task Manager. Go to Process tab in Windows 7 or Details in Windows 10, Windows 8 or Windows 8.1. Click on the CPU column to sort by CPU usage. Now you can see which process or task use up the most of your CPU resources and their real time CPU usage amount.
If it’s a background task of a program or game you could recognize, it would give you a better idea of why your CPU usage is sitting at 100 percent all the time all this while and you should know what to do next. Either kill the program by ending the task or uninstall it if it’s not necessary anymore.
Svchost.exe CPU Usage 100 percent Windows 7/8/10 Fix
If it’s one of the many svchost.exe that shows up on top of your task manager which uses a very high amount of CPU resource for as long as your Windows 10/8/7 is running, you would have to first check what this specific svchost does and eliminate the unnecessary services behind it.
Before finding out what this svchost.exe does, you should make sure it’s not a malware, trojan or virus that fake itself with a system as common as svchost.exe. This is serious because a very high amount of cases where svchost.exe causes CPU usage 100 percent is due to malware, usually one that would immediately disrupt you when you open any internet browser such as IE, Edge, Chrome or Mozilla Firefox.
We would advise you to first scan your PC or laptop computer for any possible virus or malware threats before you try to turn off any service that isn’t actually the problem. I believe I don’t have to mention how crucial the present of an anti-virus in any kind of computer is (even for your mobile devices). I would recommend Avast Free antivirus if you haven’t already installed one.
If you are sure that it isn’t a malware or a virus, you can then find out what services are running behind the highly CPU usage consuming svchost.exe. To look for what the svchost does, right click the svchost.exe and click on Go to Services. This will then bring you to the service tab. The services govern by the svchost.exe you have selected earlier will be highlighted. Check each one of them and disable unnecessary ones through the Services window which can be accessed by going to Start, type Services and hit enter.
The most common svchost.exe that run itself at CPU usage 100% is the svchost.exe that governs Windows Update and several Windows firewall rules in Windows 7/8/10. You can try to disable your Windows Update automatic update and then restart your computer. This will usually solve the CPU usage 100 percent problem.
Msosync.exe High CPU Usage 100% Windows 10/7/8
Msosync.exe is a process that sync and cache documents for your Microsoft Office programs. It will run whenever there is a document needed for caching. But when problem arises it will run randomly, keep re-appearing in the task manager, and uses up a ridiculously high amount of CPU resource even though you don’t have anything needed to be synced.
In Windows 7 or Windows 8, msosync.exe can be disable easily via the Windows Task Scheduler. Go to start and type task scheduler to open the task scheduler window. From there, you should be able to see something called Microsoft Office Sync Cache Maintenance that was scheduled to run every now and then. Disable it, restart your PC and the problem should then go away. Don’t remove it as it will reschedule itself the next time you boot your computer.
As for Windows 10, this became tricky because Microsoft doesn’t want us to disable this process presently called Microsoft Office Upload Center (we have no idea why). You won’t be able to see the Microsoft Office Sync Cache Maintenance in your task scheduler. It’s simply hidden and therefore we can’t disable the schedule. So, the only method to disable msosync.exe in Windows 10 is by going to your taskbar notification area, look for and right click the One drive icon which looks like a cloud. Select Settings and then uncheck the Use Office to work on files with other people at the same time option.
Restart your computer and the CPU usage should turn normal again when idling as long as msosync.exe is disabled.
