Application Frame Host in Windows 10

[ritchiedrama]

Hi

So basically what happens is Application Frame Host stops my GPU from idling, it makes it stick at 1556MHz rather than 204MHz at idle.

If I ctrl alt del application frame host, it goes straight back to idle.

Is there anyway I can actually stop this from happening as obviously it makes my GPU core and memory clock higher and also makes my temps raise slightly, and I'm tired of constantly ctrl+alt+del the .exe and then coming back a few hours later and its re-opened and my card isn't properly idle again.

Thanks

I have also tried formatting my PC, still does it. I've also turned off all background apps.

 

[ritchiedrama]

bump.

 

[cbn620]

My best guess after experiencing this since literally the beginning of installing Windows 10 from the beginning, is that it would appear to be not an error, bug, or malware but a "feature" in the form of wasteful hardware acceleration. Application Frame Host (hereafter AFH) appears to be related to Windows Store and Windows apps, including the basic apps that are installed on Windows 10 like calculator. It restarts itself regardless of whether you use any apps. There doesn't appear to be any action required for it to restart itself. There doesn't appear to be any task or service scheduling that is associated with this process starting.

Does anyone else have information about this? Please post even just to say if you've experienced it, it's very strange to me that so few people have noticed it. I've been scouring for months and only just now are results starting to come up on Google of other people having this issue. This post and another one on the MBAM forums for instance. Everyone I see reporting it says they are malware free and I believe them because I have personally gone through the process with my own computer and found it to be the same. I've also confirmed from multiple other people online and off that it happens no matter what software is running. Even when we have our computers is a true idle state with no background programs or processes running besides those that are vital to the operating system, AFH is raising our GPU's core and memory clocks to max, and raising temperature.

For me it's a not-insignificant difference in temperature. My actual idle temperature is 28 C. When AFH comes on and runs for awhile in the background, my GPU temperature goes up to 40 C. Seriously, 12 C to do what? It may sound petty, but I like for my computer to actually idle, and making my GPU do this inevitably means more fans and thus more noise just for it to sit and do nothing. There are actually games that use less of my graphics card than AFH does.

I can kill AFH.exe, and then not use my computer at all, and come back some 15-30 minutes later and find that AFH has restarted itself, raised my clocks, and temperature with it. This leads me to believe it doesn't come from using Windows Store apps, or in fact using anything.

I have not been able to find any setting in Windows 10 that stops this from happening and I've really run through the OS thoroughly.

Computer specs are i7-4790K, GTX 1070 (MSI Gaming X), 8 GB DDR3, 550 W PSU (Corsair CS550M). Driver versions (in particular display driver version) and Windows update status appear to be irrelevant as the issue has persisted across multiple driver versions/updates, multiple Windows installs, and Windows updates (which we don't even get to choose anymore anyways.)

 

[ritchiedrama]

My best guess after experiencing this since literally the beginning of installing Windows 10 from the beginning, is that it would appear to be not an error, bug, or malware but a "feature" in the form of wasteful hardware acceleration. Application Frame Host (hereafter AFH) appears to be related to Windows Store and Windows apps, including the basic apps that are installed on Windows 10 like calculator. It restarts itself regardless of whether you use any apps. There doesn't appear to be any action required for it to restart itself. There doesn't appear to be any task or service scheduling that is associated with this process starting.

Does anyone else have information about this? Please post even just to say if you've experienced it, it's very strange to me that so few people have noticed it. I've been scouring for months and only just now are results starting to come up on Google of other people having this issue. This post and another one on the MBAM forums for instance. Everyone I see reporting it says they are malware free and I believe them because I have personally gone through the process with my own computer and found it to be the same. I've also confirmed from multiple other people online and off that it happens no matter what software is running. Even when we have our computers is a true idle state with no background programs or processes running besides those that are vital to the operating system, AFH is raising our GPU's core and memory clocks to max, and raising temperature.

For me it's a not-insignificant difference in temperature. My actual idle temperature is 28 C. When AFH comes on and runs for awhile in the background, my GPU temperature goes up to 40 C. Seriously, 12 C to do what? It may sound petty, but I like for my computer to actually idle, and making my GPU do this inevitably means more fans and thus more noise just for it to sit and do nothing. There are actually games that use less of my graphics card than AFH does.

I can kill AFH.exe, and then not use my computer at all, and come back some 15-30 minutes later and find that AFH has restarted itself, raised my clocks, and temperature with it. This leads me to believe it doesn't come from using Windows Store apps, or in fact using anything.

I have not been able to find any setting in Windows 10 that stops this from happening and I've really run through the OS thoroughly.

Computer specs are i7-4790K, GTX 1070 (MSI Gaming X), 8 GB DDR3, 550 W PSU (Corsair CS550M). Driver versions (in particular display driver version) and Windows update status appear to be irrelevant as the issue has persisted across multiple driver versions/updates, multiple Windows installs, and Windows updates (which we don't even get to choose anymore anyways.)

Hey mate. I still have the same issue. It's "Photos" "Settings" "Calculator" "Store" that cause it. If you kill those it also stops it from happening but obviously they re-open again after awhile.

I did manage to slow the frequency in which it happens down by turning off ALL windows background apps under settings > privacy > background apps - but they still come back eventually..

Really annoying

 

[jameswbster]

Just in case there are others chasing this down, here's what I did in my case.

My wife's computer has an Asus Strix GTX 970 for mild gaming, in an ITX enclosure. The video card would happily idle in 0db mode under 50c until Application Frame Host (refered to as AFH going forward) would kick in and spike the video card's frequency, which would kick in the fans. The goal with the build was for as low noise as possible when not gaming so I tried to hunt down a solution.

What I found was that AFH was triggered initially by Microsoft Edge (which we don't use) and Microsoft Windows Store (which we also don't use). I followed the steps in the following pages to disable/remove those two items:

Microsoft Edge
https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/how-to-remove-microsoft-edge-from-windows-10-solved/

Windows Store
https://www.avoiderrors.com/remove-windows-store-windows-10/

That removed those triggers but I still had to address the AFH. I found a report that Kaspersky at one point was inaccurately blocking this process with it's Parental Controls. We just so happen to use Kaspersky so I went into the Parental Controls, manually added this executable as an application, and set it to "Block". Mission accomplished....AFH no longer launches and I don't run into the frequency spikes on the video card anymore.

Note of caution: Blocking this application does prevent some apps from working. From what I have seen so far, Calc, Photos, and Settings will not work without the AFH. Not only that, if you do attempt to run them, the processes will load and sit running in the background (you'll need to close them with Task Manager). That's the only trade-off to this point....if we run into any other issues, I'll update this thread.

Hope that helps!