Windows 7 CPU usage 80%-100%

gmartins9

New Member
heya folks another gamer in trouble here! So here's the problem : when idle, my cpu usage is around 20%, which is allot more than it should be in my opinion. Whenever I start a game, Battlefield : Bad Company 2 which is the game i've been playing allot lately, my cpu usage doesnt come down from the 90's % . It just stays there and it often goes to 99% and stays there, once again. I've been running the game at a 20 fps average :S When I could run games like far cry 2, cod mw , nfs shift and so on with settings on high with an average of 40 fps. :S How can I fix this? Thanks. If you need any info just tell me
 
Tracking down something that is working your CPU takes some investigating. Open Task Manger and see if any processes (and show all users) or Applications are showing a high CPU usage.

On the Performance tab, there is a resource monitor button that opens another utility that can be used to gather information.

Doing a cold boot might stop the activity for a while in case you need to get a baseline. You might also use Msconfig.exe to stop processes from starting up to see if you can track down the culprit.

There are tools more advanced you can use if you so desire, but let us know what you find.
 
also worth mentioning that Bad company 2's engine (Frostbite 2.1) is a whole generation ahead of the Farcry 2 engine so it's a total mistake to assume maxing out Farcry 2 and expecting the same performance in Bad Company 2. That said there's definately something wrong if your pc is idle and using 20% cpu or exiting games and it's not dropping, that said it's entirely down to the hardware you have inside as well... say if your using a notebook for instance it will often be completely below minimum specs for many modern games to even attempt smooth gameplay at high detail or resolutions, at least until you get to the £800+ price range as of current time.
 
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jesus christ no wonder.... look at all the junk backdrop tasks running like adobe reader etc....

that said the info is worthless without a spec list of your hardware
 
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hahaha :p Do I close them all? How do I know which ones to close since most of them are taking 00.00 out of the cpu o_O What can I do to close them for once and for all?
 
As an example my CPU runs that game 45-50% tops, and its running the game at 1080p dx11 maxed out everything, but if you have a low-midrange cpu then the usuage will be much higher, I would expect a dual core to use 90% or more to run it.
 
hahaha :p Do I close them all? How do I know which ones to close since most of them are taking 00.00 out of the cpu o_O What can I do to close them for once and for all?

unfortunately you would need to find out what 3rd party ones you need to keep running, personally aside from my antivirus and a select few plugins i dont have any backdrops running automatically. But be careful about some as motherboards often use 3rd party ones for monitoring etc. which often are not needed but can cause problems if removed once on.
 
Here are my current specs:

AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5200+
ATI HD 4600 Series
ECS GF8100VM-M5
Lc-Power LC 420H-12
Western Digital 500gb Sata2 7200 Rpm 32mb Buffer
3,00 GB RAM
TSSTcorp CDDVDW SH-S203B ATA

Im gonna have allot of fun closing 3rd party tasks =D Could you check if my motherboard uses any 3rd party processes? Im quite newb at this :S And if I close them now, wont they start again when I start my computer?
 
Well, it doesn't hugely surprise me that Bad Company 2 runs sluggish and has high cpu usage... thats about normal based on your specs. As for turning off stuff you dont need in the backdrop, type msconfig and run it on the start menu, goto the tab "Startup" to get a full rundown on whats running each reboot to untick ones that are not really needed... adobe ones aren't normally needed on, but ones like quicktime will be if you need itunes, just remember it takes a reboot to make the change but you can re-tick them next boot to enable if a service you need inst available.
 
Thanks. But how do you explain me running games like nfs shift, call of duty modern warfare, one of the latest medal of honor ( in the time, this computer is around 1 year old ) at high settings with an average of 40-60 fps and now it went down from all of a sudden? Im gonna clean some background tasks and also give my case a quick cleaning and see if the air flow might be the problem. Is there anything else I can do or should do?
 
All is not lost even if this doesnt work as you can try the freeware "GAMEBOOSTER" which auto detects the common ones and disables them only when a game is being played.... safer sometimes than tweaking manually.

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Thanks. But how do you explain me running games like nfs shift, call of duty modern warfare, one of the latest medal of honor ( in the time, this computer is around 1 year old ) at high settings with an average of 40-60 fps and now it went down from all of a sudden? Im gonna clean some background tasks and also give my case a quick cleaning and see if the air flow might be the problem. Is there anything else I can do or should do?

well airflow is also a very common overlooked problem, as is not doing defrags at least weekly using either "Auslogic" or "Defraggler" as the windows one is a bit rubbish.
 
yea if all the games are showing a sudden change then could be heat, also have you updated the video drivers to 11.4 whql ? as for general performance games, every engine is different, some are coded to max a gpu not cpu, and vice versa, and a few like the one used in GTA4 needs both, for instance Medal of Honor 2010 uses the same engine (Frostite 2) as bad company 2 but only on the multiplayer part (uses unreal engine on single player) but doesnt support dx11 or have the destructable buildings phyics so will run faster.
 
formatting is only done once per install and its a bit drastic to do at the first signs of slowdown, over time a defrag is needed weekly to monthly just to keep new data shuffled into a optimised order or will use more system resource to access it.
 
I had to format due to extreme slowness and I had done quite a few defrags but the slowness didnt go away.. So I thought a format would solve the problem. I guess it didnt. So it must something from the hardware... It cant be the heat because here's a screenshot of my temperatures while playing battlefield once again.
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