How To Lower CPU Usage: 6 Tried-And-Tested Ways To Keep Performance In Check

Try these troubleshooting tips on your laptop or desktop.

Even the best CPUs out there in 2023 could come down on their knees when they’re overwhelmed by either a resource-intensive task or the operating system itself. You’ll typically see a spike in CPU usage when that happens, indicating that you’re pushing your PC’s CPU beyond its limits. Not only will this result in throttled system performance, but you may even experience frequent app and game crashes.

It’s important to address the root cause of this issue and lower the CPU usage to avoid permanently damaging your CPU. Thankfully, there are some simple and effective ways to prevent your CPU usage from hitting its absolute limits. I’ve highlighted a few proven troubleshooting tips below.

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Restart the PC

A simple restart to give your PC a clean slate is all it sometimes takes to lower CPU usage. The classic “Have you tried turning it off and on?” fix works surprisingly well to lower CPU usage as it clears out the temporary files and notorious tasks that are slowing things down by running in the background. It’s not the only problem that could be dragging the system performance or causing high CPU usage, but it’s worth a shot.

Find the culprit and close unnecessary apps

These unusual CPU behaviors are often tied to one or two processes, so finding them is your best course of action. I recommend consulting the Windows Task Manager to get a list of processes that are currently active on your PC. Here’s how to find the culprit and end a task from Task Manager:

1. Open the Task Manager and click on the CPU tab to sort the programs in the order of CPU usage (high to low).
2. Select the one consuming the most CPU resources and hit End task.

Alternatively, you could also close all the unused programs under the Apps section and see if that helps to reduce CPU usage. If you come across an unknown program that’s sipping on most of your CPU resources, then find more information about it online or run a quick malware check.

Run a malware check

There’s a very good chance that your PC may have caught a virus or malware that’s causing huge spikes in CPU usage. These culprits tend to fly under your radar as they often stay hidden and run as background apps and services. Some of them may even disguise themselves as a Windows process, meaning you won’t be able to tell them apart from others while looking at the Task Manager.

There’s no way to tell what may have introduced them in the first place, but you can get rid of them with a quick antivirus scan. I recommend getting antivirus software for this, since the basic scanner offered by Windows Security may not find and fight the latest malware.

If you suspect a malware attack but don’t see anything on the Task Manager, then try the Process Monitor tool to create logs of not just the CPU usage, but also registry, network activity, and more. Checking for unusual entries in network activity will often give you a good indication of a malware attack. Alternatively, you can also use Windows’ built-in Performance Monitor tool to get a detailed view of a particular process’s CPU usage over time.

Disable background apps

While you can’t entirely prevent apps from running in the background in Windows 11, there is a way to prevent specific unwanted apps from doing so if you think they’re dragging your system’s performance. Here’s how you can do this:

1. Open Settings and select Apps from the left sidebar menu.
2. Select the Installed apps option.
3. Hit the three-dot icon next to the app of your choice and select Advanced options.
4. Select Never from the Background app permission drop-down.

Restore your system to a stable state

If your CPU recently started acting up, and you don’t know what’s causing it or don’t want to go through the hassle of taking a lot of steps to investigate it, then you can simply restore it to a state when it was running smoothly a few days or months ago. You can use the System Restore tool on Windows to do this, provided you created a restore point previously. Here’s how:

1. Open the Control Panel on your PC.
2. Next, scroll down and select the Recovery tab.
3. In the Recovery tab, open System Restore.
4. Hit next in the Recover System Files and Settings section, and pick a restore point to go back to.

This is likely to fix your problems, but you may not be able to restore if you didn’t create a restore point earlier. So consider this as your reminder to create one right now or once your CPU usage problems are dealt with, to ensure that you always have a safe restore point to go back to. Keep in mind that this type of System Restoration should not impact your personal files or delete recent documents; this is about the system, not your data. I also suggest you read our guide on repairing Windows 11 to find more ways to repair the operating system.

Look for a more specific fix for your particular CPU

If the general tips and bug fixes didn’t seem to fix the high CPU usage for you, then you might be encountering a CPU-specific problem. It could also be an app or a task-specific problem in which a particular program is constantly tanking your CPU resources, and you are unable to fix it. The best way to confirm this is by interacting and asking others who may be familiar with the type of CPU you have. There are plenty of forums and sites out there with experienced community members and experts in the field to help you. The XDA Forums are a great place to start, so I recommend starting a thread there which highlights your issue. You can also consider other online forums which are full of helpful communities.

I recommend downloading programs like CPU-Z or HWiNFO to create an activity log highlighting CPU usage, thermals, and more, in case you need to furnish more information to help others understand and assist with your problem. HWiNFO will also tell you the exact make and model of your CPU and other components, in case you are not sure about the specifics of your PC components.

Your CPU should be running smoother now

Even the best CPUs out there have limited resources, so it’s important to deal with programs that are unnecessarily draining your CPU. Be sure to keep an eye on the overall CPU usage of your PC by opening the Task Manager and selecting Performance from the options on the left.

Keep in mind that an occasional spike in CPU usage isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s only alarming if the usage is constantly high and it starts to throttle the overall system performance. I hope the tips mentioned above will fix the issue, and you won’t have to resort to extreme measures like reinstalling Windows or otherwise.