CPU running very high usage percentage

[John_David1]

I recently had a question on this page because my CPU was overheating and the performance of my PC was terrible. During my conversation on that question I checked everything they told me to and for some reason that week that the question was up my CPU was not overheating but I still had bad performance.

Recently my CPU has gone back to overheating and I am pretty sure I identified that my PC runs poorly whenever my CPU is at high percentage usage. I do not know why it is doing this as one of my friends who has the same CPU and GPU as me is running very little compared to me.

For example I had him mimic everything my computer was doing and he was running 8% usage while I was running mid 40%. My CPU is consistently hitting high 90% usage when just watching a couple streams and when it spikes my FPS tanks.

This leads to games being unplayable as my CPU will bounce all around in usage percent and this cause my fps to go from 100 to 0 then back to 30 which leads to very choppy gameplay.

If anyone knows how I can lower my CPU usage that would be great.

[AlHill]

You never mentioned what cpu you have.

Also, your issues could be to failed thermal paste, blocked cpu cooler, poor ventilation, bad fan(s), or even a virus or browser extensions.

you have some work to do to isolate the problem.

Doc (not an Intel employee or contractor)
[Maybe Windows 12 will be better]

[John_David1]

Thanks for your reply,

I have a i910900k,

I have checked some of the issues you mentioned. I checked if my cooler is working, I ran a virus check but it was only the windows one so I don't know if that's enough. I don't think it could be poor ventilation I have a  lot of fans and have gone into bios to max them out to see if that was the issue.

Since this is a pre built one of the first things I checked when this problem came up was if there was thermal paste. Although I have never applied it there seemed to be a good amount so I didn't want to take the risk of reapplying and breaking something.

Is there something I should specifically look for with failed thermal paste?

Thanks again for your reply.

[n_scott_pearson]

I have seen systems that have lots of fans and still poor cooling. First of all, fans have to respond to conditions, speeding up when temperatures rise and slowing when not. Secondly, you need to ensure that air inlet and outlet are balanced. If pressure builds up or is too low, this can impede airflow and efficiency. Finally, you need to ensure that airflow is not impeded. Many (most?) liquid cooling units cool the processor but make the situation around the processor worse, blocking airflow to the VRs, etc. Look for one that has a fan specifically for the VRs and memory close to the processor.
Hope this helps,
...S