Windows 7 (64 bit) High CPU Usage + SLOW?

Back in April, my HP Pavilion dv7 suffered from the dreaded startup repair loop; I tried everything I could, so eventually just backed up everything & performed a system... restore? Can't remember what it's called, but I restored it to it's factory settings.

But ever since then, these rather scheduled high CPU spikes occur, & result in my laptop running slow to the point of barely being able to use it. The task manager displays the system idle process as having the highest usage, usually.

I do have various software installed & various files, but out of the 500GB it can hold only around half is full.

I've performed a virus test, apparently it's all clean.

The fan only tends to run a lot, & I try my best to prevent it from overheating.

I've also updated the BIOS, but with to no effect.

I'd really, really appreciate any help you can offer, as it's getting ridiculous not being able to do anything on my laptop (especially work related things).

Thank you in advance.

Read this thread if you want any help: How to get BSOD and crash debugging assistance

SH

Hi and welcome

Is your main complaint one of heat, or of high cpu usage and slowness?

Lets take the high cpu usage and heat first.

Please make a screenshot of task manager "performance tab) sorted by memory use (click on the top of the memory column to sort).

Make sure that processes from all users is checked.

Nest can you boot into safe mode (F8), with networking and tell me if it is the same there as well.

If it isnt the same in safe mode there is probably a lot of clutter that needs to be cleaned.

If you havent already please download Malwarebytes and run a full scan on your system just in case.


http://www.malwarebytes.org/products

System idle percentage means nothing is using the CPU... what "other" programs are utilizing the processor time that you mentioned?

Based on the fact this was a fresh reinstall, I'm going to test a theory here given on my recent experience with an HP laptop and what you are describing...

Grab this and run it http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/

Now grab Prime95: http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=103 and run the torture test, while monitoring your CPU temps. If they instantly (or very quickly) climb to 90-100 range then the problem is an overheating issue, and the slowdowns you are experiencing is the CPU throttling hard.

If this does happen, then the thermal compound for the CPU has gone bad and needs to be replaced. My father recently bought an HP Dv6 laptop on my recommendation, and despite it being brand new laptop the TIM had caked to a brick and wasn't working at all, so the system would throttle just from anything running on it after a few seconds time.