Windows 8.1 lagging but cpu utilization never exceeds 33%

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rossiter35

Reputable
Oct 22, 2014
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Hello, I have an up-to-date windows 8.1 running on a dell inspiron 1520 laptop with a T7100 cpu with 4gb memory and an ssd hard drive. My computer frequently lags even with just browsing with IE11 - I can even out type it sometimes - however when I look at the task manager during these periods the cpu utilization never exceeds 33% and the memory utilization never exceeds 66%. Disk and network utilization are always low. I suspect the bottleneck is the cpu and I wonder why the utilization seems to max at 33% ?
 
Solution
J
use some kind of speed test to test your internet before and after making the changes/test i mentioned below.
http://www.speedtest.net/

might work for you.


ok, start window, run cmd.exe as a admin
(windows key+x, then type A)
run the command
shutdown.exe -s -t 0

this will do a full power off shutdown of your computer.
(not a hybrid sleep shutdown)

now reboot and test your speed.
if it is fast now then the problem is going to be a power setting to your antenna to your wireless Ethernet driver.

for most people you just update the device driver for your wireless ethernet.
Many drivers do not go to low power and back to high power correctly and you have to get a updated driver. if the driver does not fully power back on, the antenna...
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rossiter35

Reputable
Oct 22, 2014
3
0
4,510


Thanks for replying. I downloaded and ran Open Hardware monitor to get the cpu temps - both cores are maxing at 47C and power settings are set a 100% max for battery and a/c

However, the hardware utilization reported by Open Hardware monitor is much different than what I had been seeing in the Windows performance monitor screen. Open hardware monitor is showing cpu utilization at around 40% with occasional spikes to 80% when I'm just sitting here watching and not doing anything - IE11 and google chrome are open and that's all (also google drive and onedrive are open)

Now I'm confused although I'm inclined to believe open hardware monitor stats given the real life performance of the laptop.

Any further thoughts?


 
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J

johnbl

Polypheme
Nov 4, 2012
10,072
185
67,090
use some kind of speed test to test your internet before and after making the changes/test i mentioned below.
http://www.speedtest.net/

might work for you.


ok, start window, run cmd.exe as a admin
(windows key+x, then type A)
run the command
shutdown.exe -s -t 0

this will do a full power off shutdown of your computer.
(not a hybrid sleep shutdown)

now reboot and test your speed.
if it is fast now then the problem is going to be a power setting to your antenna to your wireless Ethernet driver.

for most people you just update the device driver for your wireless ethernet.
Many drivers do not go to low power and back to high power correctly and you have to get a updated driver. if the driver does not fully power back on, the antenna will be able to get signals from the router but when it transmits data the router will get errors. When it gets errors it tries again at a slower speed, it does this until it gets a good error free signal. Problem is at low power the signal speed my be 1000th the speed of a full power transmission.
 
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Solution
R

rossiter35

Reputable
Oct 22, 2014
3
0
4,510


Hi Johnbl, Thanks for your input. However, the problem was eventually diagnosed as being a faulty power jack. It seems perhaps the cpu was treating the power jack issue as if the laptop was on battery. This still seems odd to me given that I had set the power settings on the control panel to run 100% on battery but maybe the setting got overridden.

In any event, replacing the power jack (which was not a trivial task) fixed the problem and I can now push the cpu to 100% :))
 
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Enrico Colasante

Reputable
Mar 28, 2015
1
0
4,510
Just to share. I have the same problem. But I figured it out that it only happens when I use Power4Gear High Performance power profile and my laptop is plugged in.
I just need to use any other profile and it is working fine.
 
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