400% difference in CPU usage between "Task Manager" and "Sysinternal's Process Explorer"

Bertrand K 51 Reputation points
2022-10-07T08:24:13.33+00:00

On one specific server I have 400% difference in CPU usage between "Task Manager" and "Sysinternal's Process Explorer" (both picture taken on the same screenshot, so at the exact same time).
What can be the cause of this discrepancy?

Process Explorer is ran with elevated privilege. But same result if ran as regular user.

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Sysinternals
Sysinternals
Advanced system utilities to manage, troubleshoot, and diagnose Windows and Linux systems and applications.
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  1. hamza baqqali 15 Reputation points
    2023-06-10T16:14:13.79+00:00

    the below screenshot was taken on a physical machine with 8 cores, where all cores were at 100% and cpu speed was far ahead from the base 2.2 GHz speed.

    i am pretty sure of it, as there was a video encoding going on (x264 with threads=24).

    User's image

    this one illustrates the per core usage.

    User's image

    both show very wrong processxp cpu utilization.

    hope this will be fixed very soon.

    3 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Jernej Simončič 6 Reputation points
    2022-11-25T21:11:39.05+00:00

    Task Manager lies about CPU usage – it scales it according to CPU throttling, meaning that if your CPU's nominal speed is 4 GHz, and it's currently throttled to 2 GHz while all cores are fully utilised, Task Manager will show 50% CPU usage, while Process Explorer will show 100% CPU usage.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  3. Vs Com 5 Reputation points
    2023-07-18T14:32:00.0133333+00:00

    I made a feedback in the feedback app as Microsoft only acknowledge bugs reported there! Here is the link https://aka.ms/AAlhb61 upvote it so maybe it will get microsoft attention, or made a new one I will be happy to upvote it.

    1 person found this answer helpful.
  4. 虫虫 0 Reputation points
    2023-08-30T13:11:58.7333333+00:00

    this is my computer.

    win11 22h2 CPU—AMD 3600 GPU—NVIDIA GTX1660S

    task manager display CPU use age always 99% or 100%.

    Process explorer display CPU use age onley 4%-86%.

    another compter win10 CPU—intel 10700 GPU—NVIDIA P1000

    task manager display CPU use age always 2% when i open many programs.

    why?User's image

    User's image

    0 comments
  5. Marc 0 Reputation points
    2023-12-27T19:05:10.14+00:00

    SysInternals, or Microsoft, whoever actually maintains Process Explorer, please fix this. I used to keep Process Explorer running minimized, with its CPU usage icon in the tray. But on Windows 11 the CPU usage is so badly off that it's useless. Just earlier during a Windows Security scan it showed 11% usage, while Task Manager showed 33%. I basically stopped using it, which is a shame as it was such a nice utility.

    There's also the bug where launching it at startup/logon creates a process with no window and no try icon. Either by putting a shortcut in Start menu > Startup, or by checking Process Explorer option "Run at logon". The combination of those two made me stop using it.