Over the past couple weeks I’ve noticed an annoying issue on startup. A few items in task manager are collectively maxing my CPU to 100%. They include:
- Network Location Awareness
- DNS Client
- Local Service (Network Restricted)
- Quality Windows Audio Video Experience
- Network Store Interface Service
After awhile (5-10 minutes) they all die down and performance is snappy until my next restart. But for the first few minutes the computer is close to unusable - mouse and keyboard lag, video won’t play without major stutters, etc. Pretty beefy rig, system on SSD, and never had this issue before, so at a loss for how to fix this. When I Google for answers I mostly get pointed to free-to-scan, pay-to-repair tools.
Appreciate any tips!
This is a longshot and I’ll just say, 99.99% wrong direction, but what happens if you disable Steam and anything else that’s network aware upon startup (ie. any 3rd party antivirus)
My Steam isn’t set to start on launch. How can I figure out what other apps are network aware and on launch?
Besides anti-virus, a lot of big-name retail-ish computers, Dell, HP, Asus etc have a crapload of software that scans your system then hits their servers, looking for stuff. While you’d think this should be painless it isn’t and is the bane of many laptop users.
There is a command to run to show all of your startup programs (excluding I think the ones in the start menu in the startup folder). But if what Jeff is saying is correct about bloat ware, then you should probably just run CCleaner. Although first can I get someone to re-vouch for it? I feel like there was some controversy recently with that app.
Assuming Win10, the Task Manager has a Startup tab you can start with.
By chance do you have Malwarebytes loaded? There’s a thread here, but an update a while back did this exact thing. The fix for many of us was to completely uninstall and reboot. Then go to their site and get the newest version, then load that.
If you’re in Windows 10 you can right click the task bar and select Task Manager, then once that comes up you can click the arrow at the bottom of that window for More details. It will show all processes, and you can narrow down what the offending one is.
@AK_Icebear have you found anything out?
Yes, thanks all. I had a handful of apps with high CPU impact on startup based on the task manager, but it seems Citrix was the most important. I used that for remote logins with an old job but haven’t needed it for months. Not sure why it was suddenly acting up so much (perhaps an update?) But the issues disappeared once I uninstalled it.
Thanks again!
