Ntoskrnl.exe Causing High CPU Usage

Question

After implementing the Windows Update, the CPU usage and disk usage of "ntoskrnl.exe" are quite high.
What are the causes?

Answer 1

Hello there,

Ntoskrnl.exe, short for Windows NT operating system kernel, is a fundamental part of the system.

I would suggest you to perform a clean boot and see if that helps. You can follow the steps from here https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

Try performing a full system scan for your computer to see if there are unwanted programs and script that slowdown your computer's performance.

The below thread discusses the same issue and you can try out some troubleshooting steps from this and see if that helps you to sort the Issue.

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/ntoskrnlexe-causing-high-cpu-usage/a1d2c97c-b208-4450-835f-cfb63462f07b

Hope this resolves your Query !!

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Answer 2

Hi YoshimatsuMisaki-1281,

Thank you for your post.

How can we see that ntoskrnl .exe occupies a high level and it would be helpful if there were screenshots.

According to your description, this problem only occurs when installing updates. For Windows Update, it will use trustinstaller.exe. I suggest that we could try to reset Windows Update component to check or disable trustinstaller.exe to monitor.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-client/deployment/additional-resources-for-windows-update

Perform a clean boot to avoid the impact of some third-party software services.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows-da2f9573-6eec-00ad-2f8a-a97a1807f3dd

We could try to download Process Explorer to check which one cause large cpu.

Meanwhile, for high cpu issue, I suggest that we could try to use WPR tool (Windows Performance Recorder) to capture the trace when the issue happend.

Best Regards,

Carl

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