System Process and Windows 10

[enixon]

System process using 40-70% of my CPU at completely random times, on two different Surface 3 units, and on fresh installs.

I'm also getting constant static from the speakers.

I don't care much about the speakers, because I am quite sure that is tied to the System process using so much processes, but when I can't use my device because my CPU is being 100% utilized, it also drains my battery in less than two-three hours. It runs in sleep mode, and causes the CPU to be 100% also. I've already done a complete refresh, and it's happening on two different units.

Is anyone else getting this issue? I know the audio glitch is a documented issue, but I haven't seen many people complain about the System process.

Oh, I also forgot to mention that I fully charged my Surface and put it to sleep to test if it was running in the background for sure. I wake up and my Surface 3 is at 13%. Ran the battery cmd thing, and it was System process using 90% of the battery. I REALLY need an update soon, otherwise I am just going to let this device sit on my desk until there is an update.

 

[cygnus11]

I just monitored my Surface 3 4GB model for the last 20 minutes or so and I did not see the System process using any significant amount of CPU. I also don't seem to have the battery drain problem. 4 hours of sleep mode off of the charger last night seemed to consume about 10% of the battery (after 4 hours I have it configured to hibernate).

Do you have the LTE model? Have you tried to reset your Surface to a clean Windows 10 install? Have you installed any apps that are not "typical"?

 

[enixon]

I do have the LTE model, and I think it is Microsoft's drivers that aren't working properly that is causing these issues to be honest. It seems the people that are having the battery issue have the same LTE model, even if they turn WiFi/LTE off. It's a little worrying.

I've done two clean Windows 10 installs, I am not going to do a third one, because it takes about 2-3 hours on the Surface 3 with the terribly slow eMMC drive.

I haven't installed any programs that would do this, and I have monitored said programs. However, when I woke it up from sleep this morning Facebook was using 65% CPU, so I uninstalled that... lol

 

[michail71]

I found it does that when Windows Update is downloading (not even installing). WU for some reason can bring my S3's CPU to its knees.

 

[enixon]

It's not downloading anything. It's just a driver issue with the Surface 3 LTE devices. I rolled it back to Windows 8.1, and it still does it. I did a factory reset back to 8.1 today, and it is still doing it. System takes up a ton of resources. I had my friend's Surface 3 next to mine, doing the update today, and on Microsoft Edge, and it was only using 15% CPU. Mine was sitting idle, doing nothing, and using 90-100%.

I work at a Microsoft retail store, so I know a little about what's going on. I'm just trying to see if others with the LTE device are having the same issues.

 

[enixon]

Fresh reinstall of Windows 10 with updated drivers from Microsoft installed, and as you can see...literally nothing else installed... I've forwarded this issue to some of the Surface team, because I think this is affecting every Surface 3 LTE, and since they aren't sold in mass they can't a lot of feedback.

Also, **** this website's advertisements. It took me five minutes to type this because my Surface froze about 10 times from loading so many video advertisements. Like seriously... find a new ad supplying company. I have to reedit my host files again because this site is so unusable.

 

[michail71]

I normally keep my LTE radio off so I just turned it on. There was a short spike but it settled back down. Turning it off or on will use about 80% CPU for about 5 seconds as a bunch of processes seem to fire up, especially antimalware.

I also keep WiFi in sleep off since it was giving me massive battery drains while in sleep. Turning on LTE while keeping WiFi set to off in sleep seems to bypass the setting as a sleep study showed WiFi and LTE had equal, full tilt power draws in sleep. The WiFi and LTE radio (Srurface modem) seem to be hooked together.

Desktop Windows Manager seems to be the busiest thing but it's only using 3% CPU followed by the task manager.

I watched it again while doing the windows update today and it maintained about 80-90% solid System CPU usage while the download was pulling. I figure a download should hardly touch the CPU but it gets it hung up.

 

[enixon]

I normally keep my LTE radio off so I just turned it on. There was a short spike but it settled back down. Turning it off or on will use about 80% CPU for about 5 seconds as a bunch of processes seem to fire up, especially antimalware.

I also keep WiFi in sleep off since it was giving me massive battery drains while in sleep. Turning on LTE while keeping WiFi set to off in sleep seems to bypass the setting as a sleep study showed WiFi and LTE had equal, full tilt power draws in sleep. The WiFi and LTE radio (Srurface modem) seem to be hooked together.

Desktop Windows Manager seems to be the busiest thing but it's only using 3% CPU followed by the task manager.

I watched it again while doing the windows update today and it maintained about 80-90% solid System CPU usage while the download was pulling. I figure a download should hardly touch the CPU but it gets it hung up.

So you aren't noticing the constant CPU usage that I am? Could you go into device manager and see if you have any devices with an explanation mark on them, like in mine?

 

[michail71]

I don't have any devices with the warning icon. I checked the "I2C HID Device" and it's on 10.10.10240.16384 with a date of 6/21/2006. Odd that it's the OS build number but dated 2006.

Any other problems besides the CPU load?

 

[michail71]

Oh, I only have one listed. It looks like you have two of them. Can you uninstall the other one?

 

[enixon]

So...funny enough. I've tried to do just that ever since having this device. Since I work at a Microsoft Retail Store, I know that there should only be one listed, but mine has always displayed two. I wasn't sure if that was because of the LTE. So last night I uninstalled all of my USB controllers, and I still had that second I2C. So out of frustration last night, after trying to watch a YouTube video and having it freeze on me and crackle my speakers, I turned off my Surface and left it to charge. I woke up this morning and noticed it didn't take 15 seconds to sign in, it took like 3. I launched Edge to check some websites and noticed it launched immediately. So I did my normal Ctrl - Shift - Exit command to get to the task manager, and noticed my CPU usage was at like 5% with two Edge tabs open...

I was like...NO FREAKING WAY! My Surface is acting normal, this can't be. I opened Device Manager, and my second I2C was gone, no yellow caution signs on any of my devices. I am HAPPY!

Edit: I have no idea what I did to fix it. There was no pending updates, and when I shut it down last night, it was still having these issues with the second I2C device. I'm not complaining, but I don't like knowing what fixed it. haha

 

[michail71]

That is weird. At least it's working now.

Perhaps you did something that required a reboot to take? Sometimes when you work so hard to fix a problem the solution gets lost in all the variables.

Now if we can get the pen button working with OneNote, the mysterious stuck right click and occasional touch screen failure we'll have a good Win 10 experience on the S3. The last two may have been fixed. I haven't seen them happen yet since the big update yesterday.

 

[enixon]

I don't have a pen to test that with, but on our demo Surface 3s at work, the pen's button works. I haven't encountered the stuck right click yet either, and my touch screen has been pretty responsive, except when my CPU was at 100%...lol

 

[michail71]

The stuck right click sometimes happens after a while of usage. And I haven't seen the digitizer get unresponsive for a bit. So hopefully that has been fixed.

The button works but it can't be set to open the desktop version of OneNote. The option is there but the Surface App has an error message saying that it can't connect to the pen and the option to select desktop is disabled.

I wouldn't mind too much but the app version of OneNote got stripped of almost all features in Win 10.

 

[enixon]

So interesting tidbit happened today, and I have found out exactly what my issue was originally, and how to fix it!

I plugged in my charger, and that second I2C device popped up and System and System Interrupts went nuts again. So I went into Device Manager to see if anything else had changed, it didn't. I then sorted it by 'resources by connection'. The I2C device in question strings from a single PCIe lane which is responsible for one of the USB root hubs. So, like any *****...I uninstalled it. Issue fixed, or so I thought. The I2C device no longer came up after a restart, so I was happy that System and System Interrupts was behaving normally. However, my Home button, volume keys, or power button no longer worked. I went back into device manager, and there was a lot of hidden devices and exclamation points now. I then installed the latest .MSI file from Microsoft for the US Win10 Surface 3. Restarted my PC. Checked everything, and it is all working perfect. Every device has the correct drivers, no second I2C device, processes are behaving normal, perfection.

I can safely say, that as of right now, I found and isolated the issue to a single PCIe lane, and a single USB root hub. Updating the drivers fixed it, but the drivers wouldn't update properly until I uninstalled it.

 

[cygnus11]

That's really good information. Thanks for posting that. It seems weird though that when you did full resets that the drivers didn't get installed correctly. I wonder why you had to manually uninstall the devices and re-install the drivers using the .msi.

 

[enixon]

I am not sure either to be honest, but it is possible, though super unlikely, that every time it went to do the install of the drivers they were corrupted.

However, I think it is more likely that Microsoft hasn't assigned the proper drivers for the LTE version in specific instances. I know of a few people that have the same issue with me using the same LTE model. I will be sending this information to Microsoft so they can get a fix out for the few people who are having this issue.

 

[michail71]

I had the system go crazy on me last night. My Surface 3 lost power on the charger and was really hot when I work up. There were about 5 system processes taking up 100% CPU. I checked the I2C driver and that was fine.

Anyway, a reboot cleared it up.

 

[enixon]

I had the system go crazy on me last night. My Surface 3 lost power on the charger and was really hot when I work up. There were about 5 system processes taking up 100% CPU. I checked the I2C driver and that was fine.

Anyway, a reboot cleared it up.

That's good news! I think with the rush of Windows 10, Intel didn't have proper time to put together a fully-featured driver. I expect new drivers to come out soon that will hopefully fix a lot of issues people are having.

 

[michail71]

It came back. I must have jinxed myself when I responded to this thread, lol.

I had a rather embarrassing time at a meeting today with my S3. As soon as I opened the cover up nothing was working. Once I got into the task manager I could see it was the system process again. I had to reboot.

It seems to be associated with sleep. I'll run the sleep study command later and see if that has any info.