Jinx
As the title says, my CPU usage is so damn high!
I have the Acer Gemstone 6920G laptop:
Processors: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00 Ghz 2.00 Ghz
RAM: 4Gb
System Type:64-bit
Graphics : Nvidia GeFroce 9500M Gs 1.7Gb dedicated
I play Dota 2 and Half-Life , when I Alt+Tab the CPU usage drops to 20-30% but in game its a 100% and the PC overheat but don't shut-down or errors just some lags and slow pc
When using Photoshop or Illustrator its around 80%
So any idea on how to fix the problem without getting a new laptop
yasamoka
Your CPU is bottlenecking those games. 100% CPU usage means that the CPU is holding back the GPU from flexing its muscles @100%, where it is the prime determinant of performance.
There is no way to fix the problem without getting a new laptop, except by overclocking, which anyways usually offers realistic boosts up to 30% on Desktops. On laptops, it is most probably impossible if your BIOS does not support it, and if it does, then it would a be a very mild overclock. Not worth it both ways.
AvoK95
A 9500M shouldn't bottleneck with a C2D 2.0GHz CPU. Especially if it's a laptop because the manufacture would have made it in a way that it doesn't cause bottlenecks.
Try scanning your PC for viruses , then run check disk.
Don't forget to always update your drivers , especially your graphics card drivers.
Beej
alt+tab and see what processes are taking up cpu %. Sometimes it happens to my sisters laptop, a dllhost apear and i just disable it and its all good.
Note: DO not disbale all of them, just the one thats taking too much, usually it sucks up to 40%.
geekevo
scvhost defender.exe?Used to happen to me how old is your laptop?Scan for viruses like mentioned before.
yasamoka
@AvoK95: No it's not about the GPU specs. Games usually have a minimum CPU usage that they use up, regardless of GPU spec. A C2D @ 2GHz is too low to be used in DoTA 2.
And about the laptop maker making it in such a way that it won't bottleneck is competely false. That's just wishful thinking. Biggest proof is the wide variation in performance between low-end and high-end GPUs and low-end and high-end CPUs. The max you could do with a CPU is up the core count from 2 and 4 and give what, a 30% boost to frequency? 50%? Let's say 3 times boost. With GPUs, the boost is much higher.
Again, it's not about the framerates the GPU can pull. There is an absolute minimum CPU usage that a game would use up, in rough terms.
It's not THAT deterministic. It's not that "x CPU" will not bottleneck "y GPU". That's a general assumption that is usually true, but not always. It is especially true when you reach a certain framerate threshold, but other than that, cases are variable. For example, in Elder Scrolls Skyrim, no matter your GPU make, once you have better single-threaded performance, an i3 2100 will easy outperform an i7 920, ONLY in places that rock the CPU hard. And there places cause dips in the framerates from 60 to sometimes below 30, on top-end systems with top-end GPUs.
julien_saadeh
Clean your vents by blowing air into them.
