Imagine having to handle multiple tasks for a prolonged period. While multinational corporations might advertise multitasking as a desirable trait, one scientific study after another warns us of its adverse side effects on our health. Computers are similar.
The CPU, short for Central Processing Unit, is the brain of your computer. To take a Stephen Hawkins reference, it is that which ‘breathes fire’ into your computer and lights everything up. So, if something goes wrong with your CPU, you are going to be in trouble.
A common issue that our readers have faced at one point or the other is that of high CPU usage. Among other things, excessive CPU usage is caused by using multiple apps concurrently. And so, it should be resolved with closing down all the excessive apps. In this article, we’ll look at the best ways to tackle this excessive wastage of CPU resources. Let’s get started.
1. Reboot Your PC
A quick reboot can do wonders for your PC. Indeed, it’s often the first solution that is recommended for most of our electronic woes.
A reboot works by removing all the apps that might be eating your computer’s memory. This can happen even if you’ve closed the said task for a while now. So, a quick reset is definitely worth the shot.
2. Close Down Heavy Tasks
Some tasks can end up eating a lot of your CPU memory, even if they are only running in the background. The same applies if you’ve got multiple tabs open in your web browser. Each additional tab weighs on your CPU’s memory.
To make sure that’s not the case, open the Task Manager and close any background apps that are occupying too much space.
Press Control + Shift + Esc to open the Task Manager. Now, if you are opening the Task Manager for the first time, click on the More details option to see all the processes and the space they are occupying.
From there, click on the CPU tab to sort the processes, so that those occupying most of your CPU space are at the top. Select the process that’s weighing down your CPU, which you no longer want to use, and click on the End Task.
Repeat the process, till you’re done with all the unnecessary tasks. If everything went right, then the high CPU usage issue would be resolved by now.
3. Remove Malware
Malware, or malicious software, is a software designed to harm your computer. Sometimes confused with virus, which is a specific type of malware, a malware works by harming your computer in different ways.
One such way of harming your PC is by slowing it down. It can do this sneakily by running multiple programs, and taking up memory space. In fact, as per the current cryptocurrency fads, malware could even be used to eat up your memory for the mining of cryptocurrency coins. Such specific types of malware are known as mining malware.
To make sure that’s not the case, run a complete scan of your computer through an anti-virus. If you don’t have one installed right now, you can easily download one for free from the internet. However, we recommend that you buy a paid plan for the additional security that it offers.
4. Optimize Your Windows Operating System
There’s an option on your PC by which you can set your PC for optimization of performance over other things.
To make sure that’s the case, open the file explorer and right-click on This PC. Now, select Properties.
On the next window, click on “Advanced system settings.” Next, click on the Settings button from the Performance section. Finally, select Adjust for best performance option and then click on Apply. Note that this will make your Windows a little unappealing than before, so try this one as a last resort.
Fixing High CPU Usage for Good
Unnecessary usage of your CPU resources can result in a poor performance of computer. If this goes on for a longer time, it might even shorten your computer’s life. Hopefully, however, one of our methods listed on this article might’ve resolved the high CPU usage problem for you.
If not, then there might be an underlying hardware problem, and we’d suggest you take your computer to the nearest repair center.
