CPU Usage is very high, up to 90%, and then drops down when I open Task Manager - frequent crashes

[jrpsubway]

Hi, I've had my computer for a couple of years now and I've had occasional crashes, but in the past couple of weeks, it's been crashing almost every other day. The even weirder thing is that this doesn't necessarily always happen under "heavy load" with things like video games; I've had crashes where I was on Chrome in Wikipedia before.

I'm not sure what causes the super high numbers, but after they go down (almost instantaneously) the MSI gaming app is always sitting around 10% at the top of the list.

Here are my specs:

CPU: AMD - FX-6350 3.9GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-990FXA-UD3 Ultra ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Intel - 530 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI - Radeon R9 380 4GB Video Card
Case: Rosewill - BLACKHAWK-BLUE ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair - 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus - DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link - TL-WN881ND PCI-Express x1 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter

 

[jacobweaver800]

Hi, I've had my computer for a couple of years now and I've had occasional crashes, but in the past couple of weeks, it's been crashing almost every other day. The even weirder thing is that this doesn't necessarily always happen under "heavy load" with things like video games; I've had crashes where I was on Chrome in Wikipedia before.

I'm not sure what causes the super high numbers, but after they go down (almost instantaneously) the MSI gaming app is always sitting around 10% at the top of the list.

Here are my specs:

CPU: AMD - FX-6350 3.9GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-990FXA-UD3 Ultra ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Intel - 530 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI - Radeon R9 380 4GB Video Card
Case: Rosewill - BLACKHAWK-BLUE ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair - 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus - DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link - TL-WN881ND PCI-Express x1 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter

It sounds like you have a Virus, but a smart one that may be causing system instability, it could be stopping itself when you open task manager to stop itself from being detected from the CPU load. If it is a virus that is pinning the CPU the CPU maxed may be unstable, are you overclocking?

 

[jrpsubway]

Hi, I've had my computer for a couple of years now and I've had occasional crashes, but in the past couple of weeks, it's been crashing almost every other day. The even weirder thing is that this doesn't necessarily always happen under "heavy load" with things like video games; I've had crashes where I was on Chrome in Wikipedia before.

I'm not sure what causes the super high numbers, but after they go down (almost instantaneously) the MSI gaming app is always sitting around 10% at the top of the list.

Here are my specs:

CPU: AMD - FX-6350 3.9GHz 6-Core Processor
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-990FXA-UD3 Ultra ATX AM3+ Motherboard
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Intel - 530 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI - Radeon R9 380 4GB Video Card
Case: Rosewill - BLACKHAWK-BLUE ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair - 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus - DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer
Operating System: Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link - TL-WN881ND PCI-Express x1 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter

It sounds like you have a Virus, but a smart one that may be causing system instability, it could be stopping itself when you open task manager to stop itself from being detected from the CPU load. If it is a virus that is pinning the CPU the CPU maxed may be unstable, are you overclocking?

I'm not overclocking and I've run multiple virus scans from different companies like Malwarebytes

 

[iceTorch]

Just to add on previously, you should be installing antivirus/malwarebytes in safe mode and scanning in safe mode.

Have you run chkdsk in cmd prompt to see if its a hard drive issue? When you say that it crashes, do you get a blue screen?

 

[jacobweaver800]

Just to add on previously, you should be installing antivirus/malwarebytes in safe mode and scanning in safe mode.

Have you run chkdsk in cmd prompt to see if its a hard drive issue? When you say that it crashes, do you get a blue screen?

Your running Win 10 so there isn't an easy way to boot into safe mode, your going to have to fail the boot on purpose. Upon booting hit Ctrl+Alt+del which should fail the boot. during the next boot do the same until it lands you into the options screen to boot into safe mode. There are multiple ways to boot into safe mode on Windows 10 but this is one I have come to use on my PC's. If this doesn't work for you you can try looking up other ways.

 

[jrpsubway]

Just to add on previously, you should be installing antivirus/malwarebytes in safe mode and scanning in safe mode.

Have you run chkdsk in cmd prompt to see if its a hard drive issue? When you say that it crashes, do you get a blue screen?

Your running Win 10 so there isn't an easy way to boot into safe mode, your going to have to fail the boot on purpose. Upon booting hit Ctrl+Alt+del which should fail the boot. during the next boot do the same until it lands you into the options screen to boot into safe mode. There are multiple ways to boot into safe mode on Windows 10 but this is one I have come to use on my PC's. If this doesn't work for you you can try looking up other ways.

I booted into safe mode and ran Malwarebytes along with a bunch of windows stock cleaning program, but nothing was found.

When my PC crashes (or I guess freezes) it just locks up whatever it is doing and i cannot do anything to make it respond, forcing me to reset.

 

[jacobweaver800]

Just to add on previously, you should be installing antivirus/malwarebytes in safe mode and scanning in safe mode.

Have you run chkdsk in cmd prompt to see if its a hard drive issue? When you say that it crashes, do you get a blue screen?

Your running Win 10 so there isn't an easy way to boot into safe mode, your going to have to fail the boot on purpose. Upon booting hit Ctrl+Alt+del which should fail the boot. during the next boot do the same until it lands you into the options screen to boot into safe mode. There are multiple ways to boot into safe mode on Windows 10 but this is one I have come to use on my PC's. If this doesn't work for you you can try looking up other ways.

I booted into safe mode and ran Malwarebytes along with a bunch of windows stock cleaning program, but nothing was found.

When my PC crashes (or I guess freezes) it just locks up whatever it is doing and i cannot do anything to make it respond, forcing me to reset.

It is still possible you have a virus that got passed the scans, I've seen it before. Open task manager and see if you can get a look at what is causing the CPU to be under high usage.

 

[jrpsubway]

Just to add on previously, you should be installing antivirus/malwarebytes in safe mode and scanning in safe mode.

Have you run chkdsk in cmd prompt to see if its a hard drive issue? When you say that it crashes, do you get a blue screen?

Your running Win 10 so there isn't an easy way to boot into safe mode, your going to have to fail the boot on purpose. Upon booting hit Ctrl+Alt+del which should fail the boot. during the next boot do the same until it lands you into the options screen to boot into safe mode. There are multiple ways to boot into safe mode on Windows 10 but this is one I have come to use on my PC's. If this doesn't work for you you can try looking up other ways.

I booted into safe mode and ran Malwarebytes along with a bunch of windows stock cleaning program, but nothing was found.

When my PC crashes (or I guess freezes) it just locks up whatever it is doing and i cannot do anything to make it respond, forcing me to reset.

It is still possible you have a virus that got passed the scans, I've seen it before. Open task manager and see if you can get a look at what is causing the CPU to be under high usage.

I just when in and it appeared that a remnant of the MSI gaming app that I uninstalled was still there and eating a large amount of my CPU.

I deleted it and reinstalled the app and my CPU usage has appeared to turn to normal. I haven't experienced a crash yet so it appears I may have solved the problem. Thank you all!

 

[jacobweaver800]

Just to add on previously, you should be installing antivirus/malwarebytes in safe mode and scanning in safe mode.

Have you run chkdsk in cmd prompt to see if its a hard drive issue? When you say that it crashes, do you get a blue screen?

Your running Win 10 so there isn't an easy way to boot into safe mode, your going to have to fail the boot on purpose. Upon booting hit Ctrl+Alt+del which should fail the boot. during the next boot do the same until it lands you into the options screen to boot into safe mode. There are multiple ways to boot into safe mode on Windows 10 but this is one I have come to use on my PC's. If this doesn't work for you you can try looking up other ways.

I booted into safe mode and ran Malwarebytes along with a bunch of windows stock cleaning program, but nothing was found.

When my PC crashes (or I guess freezes) it just locks up whatever it is doing and i cannot do anything to make it respond, forcing me to reset.

It is still possible you have a virus that got passed the scans, I've seen it before. Open task manager and see if you can get a look at what is causing the CPU to be under high usage.

I just when in and it appeared that a remnant of the MSI gaming app that I uninstalled was still there and eating a large amount of my CPU.

I deleted it and reinstalled the app and my CPU usage has appeared to turn to normal. I haven't experienced a crash yet so it appears I may have solved the problem. Thank you all!

No problem, I hope that fixed it. It is usually an application or Virus causing the CPU to pin or be of high usage, I found it funny that it went away when opening task manager though.