Sunday, April 22, 2018

Windows 8.1 high CPU usage


When I play audio/video files with my system, no matter what the media player is, the cpu usage goes easily high and it's due to something labeled as "System" in task manager, and when I track its location, it leads me to "ntoskrnl.exe".


I searched about this a lot, I updated all my drivers, especially audio driver, I use Nod32 Antivurs and I installed an anti-malware beside it recently but nothing has changed at all.


A friend of mine suggested maybe I should reinstall the Windows, perform a complete scan and then see if it happens again or not. because he thinks some threats have affected that part of the system.
If it could be the solution, would you please help me with these:



  1. My laptop had windows 8.1 officially installed on it, so I don't have its installer on CD or portable memory. Do I have to purchase it from Microsoft in order to install it again?

  2. Would updating current windows to windows 10 serve the same purpose to solve this?


Answer



So as I explained in one of the above comments, I installed Process Explorer in order to observe my CPU usage during playing audio files with more details, As I noticed before the highest CPU usage(around 20-30%) was caused by "System", I right clicked on it and selected Properties.


Under the Threats tab, I detected the most interrupting file, which was "stdriver64.sys". I searched its name online and found out it was directly related to "NCH SoundTap Recorder"(a software which records Windows audio playback). Then I just uninstalled the program and there was simply no more high CPU usages while playing audio/video files, problem solved.


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