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SteveBorough
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They don't or they don't care, this has been an issue with Surface Pro 2 since its release last October.
Do ALL SP2s suffer from hi CPU utilization when idle due to faulty audio drivers?
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They don't or they don't care, this has been an issue with Surface Pro 2 since its release last October.
I'm not even convinced MS reads their own answers.microsoft.com boards ha, so no chance here.
Mine has gotten much more sporadic after FEB and MAR round of updates.... prior to those, I'd have the problem every time I has an SD card installed. Now, it's more random. Still happens and is totally annoying, but it's not all the time, and seems to happen more now after using the device for a while instead of right after boot like before.
Not related, but FWIW I've had my own problems with different runaway processes spiking CPU usage on the SP2...
The most recent one (I think) I tracked down had to do with accessing IMAP email accounts with many folders and messages, in both Outlook 2013 Click-to-Run (365) and the Windows 8 Mail app. Seems the Windows Search/Indexing service often failed to start in that situation (which in turn hampered other things like SkyDrive syncing). And both Communicatios Service (LiveComm) and the various Search/Indexer services liked to eat up CPU cycles for extended periods of time...
The most recent one (I think) I tracked down had to do with accessing IMAP email accounts with many folders and messages, in both Outlook 2013 Click-to-Run (365) and the Windows 8 Mail app. Seems the Windows Search/Indexing service often failed to start in that situation (which in turn hampered other things like SkyDrive syncing). And both Communicatios Service (LiveComm) and the various Search/Indexer services liked to eat up CPU cycles for extended periods of time...
I have one of the first Pros made and noticed the CPU utilization starting the fall of 2013. I had hoped that 8.1 would fix it. It didn't. I re-imaged the Surface to factory reset and then upgraded to 8.1. The issue still occurs. I do have a 64GB SD card formatted to NTFS.
Yesterday while the CPU was pegging at 50% I was able to kill what appeared to be an abnormal "svchost.exe" process which instantly dropped the CPU to less then 3%. It was abnormal because it was using around 200MB of RAM even though the CPU on that line was at about 3% to 5% active. Not sure how the overall CPU was 50% when this one svchost.exe instance was less than 5%. But the discrepancy is probably part of the bug.
The svchost.exe was killed from within the "Details" tab of Task Manager. I can't remember the User Name that it was running under but I think it was under a Local Service. Note that I tried to kill a svchost service in the past which instantly restarted the PC
. So be careful with this one.
Update 3/25/2014 - issue came up today and I successfully stopped it by killing a svchost.exe entry. This time I confirmed that the rogue process was running the a "System" User Name in Task Manager. I have not been able to get rid of the problem by putting the table asleep and waking it up. I will try that next time before I kill a svchost.exe.
Yesterday while the CPU was pegging at 50% I was able to kill what appeared to be an abnormal "svchost.exe" process which instantly dropped the CPU to less then 3%. It was abnormal because it was using around 200MB of RAM even though the CPU on that line was at about 3% to 5% active. Not sure how the overall CPU was 50% when this one svchost.exe instance was less than 5%. But the discrepancy is probably part of the bug.
The svchost.exe was killed from within the "Details" tab of Task Manager. I can't remember the User Name that it was running under but I think it was under a Local Service. Note that I tried to kill a svchost service in the past which instantly restarted the PC
. So be careful with this one.Update 3/25/2014 - issue came up today and I successfully stopped it by killing a svchost.exe entry. This time I confirmed that the rogue process was running the a "System" User Name in Task Manager. I have not been able to get rid of the problem by putting the table asleep and waking it up. I will try that next time before I kill a svchost.exe.
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Mine still shows up as System and System Interrupts in Task Manager... it has gotten noticeably less frequent after the March updates, but just today I noticed while simply browsing at lunch in Metro IE the back warming up a bit. Sure enough, 20-30% CPU usage for no reason. I tapped it asleep and woke it back up, and hasn't done it again today since, but still annoying as it needlessly drains the battery especially if I don't catch it.
For what it's worth, I haven't seen this near as often, and have kept Task Manager open for weeks to keep an eye on it. This is the first time I've seen it in about a week. This is with a Samsung Extreme 64GB mSD card installed continuously.
For what it's worth, I haven't seen this near as often, and have kept Task Manager open for weeks to keep an eye on it. This is the first time I've seen it in about a week. This is with a Samsung Extreme 64GB mSD card installed continuously.
Yes, I tap the power button on top and it puts the SP2 to sleep... then, I either tap the power button or Windows button to wake it back up. Pretty much every time this instantly stops the extra CPU processes.
That works, or use one of the menu items to do the same thing. Some have reported this "trick" does not always work. I think the short "nap" works for the the mSD related startup issue, maybe not as reliably for random CPU spinning.
Last couple of weeks I've seen the non-startup CPU 25% rate several times, but its random occurrence makes it hard to pin down the exact circumstances in which it arises. Very hard to know if related to updates, or any other particular factors.
I took some screenshots of what I see when the CPU starts being a renegade.
1. Picture "Performance" shows the CPU going crazy.
2. Picture "Processes" shows that there aren't any processes or apps running that would cause this issue such as a long video encoding or something like that.
3. Picture "svchost" shows that when I flip over to the Details tab PID 952 sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of RAM and also the CPU at 1% or 2%. Again it is interesting that the CPU is not 50% which is what the effect is on the Performance tab
4. Picture "fixed" shows the problem fixed after I End Task'd on PID 952.
This is a 3 week old install of Windows 8.0 and then upgraded to 8.1 on a Microsoft Surface Pro 8 with 128GB of hard disk. This was purcahsed about a month after they became available. The same issue was happening late last fall 2013 and I put up with it through the Holidays. Finally a few weeks ago I tried fixing it by restoring the factory settings and upgrading to 8.1.
I tried the Sleep workaround in the past and for me I don't ever remember it working. When the CPU went renegade it did just that until a reboot. My battery is dead in about an hour when this happens. After I kill the bad svchost.exe the Surface is normal. the fan turns off and the battery consumption is normal.
I wish Microsoft would fix this god damned problem.
1. Picture "Performance" shows the CPU going crazy.
2. Picture "Processes" shows that there aren't any processes or apps running that would cause this issue such as a long video encoding or something like that.
3. Picture "svchost" shows that when I flip over to the Details tab PID 952 sticks out like a sore thumb in terms of RAM and also the CPU at 1% or 2%. Again it is interesting that the CPU is not 50% which is what the effect is on the Performance tab
4. Picture "fixed" shows the problem fixed after I End Task'd on PID 952.
This is a 3 week old install of Windows 8.0 and then upgraded to 8.1 on a Microsoft Surface Pro 8 with 128GB of hard disk. This was purcahsed about a month after they became available. The same issue was happening late last fall 2013 and I put up with it through the Holidays. Finally a few weeks ago I tried fixing it by restoring the factory settings and upgrading to 8.1.
I tried the Sleep workaround in the past and for me I don't ever remember it working. When the CPU went renegade it did just that until a reboot. My battery is dead in about an hour when this happens. After I kill the bad svchost.exe the Surface is normal. the fan turns off and the battery consumption is normal.
I wish Microsoft would fix this god damned problem.
