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PC Graphics

paullepkowski
Journeyman III

Extremely high cpu load AMDRadeon+Intel Graphics

I have Radeon Pro WX3100 mobile GPU running with Intel graphics 620.  In task manager, the "System" process is always running at 100% on one core.  This process is tied to ntoskrnl.exe (when I click on the process and go to properties).  This makes the computer unusable, not just annoying, when using 3D applications.  This process runs constantly.  It happened out of the blue without the installation of any new software.  Also, there were no updates to Win10.   I installed no driver updates.

What fixes this:

Device manager > Display adapters > Intel HD graphics > Disable

      The "system" process returns to normal

OR

Device manager > Display adapters > Radeon Pro WX3100 > Disable

      The "system" process returns to normal

Both enabled at the same time creates the problem

I have tried:

1) Uninstall ALL drivers

Reinstall Intel HD graphics driver (Using recommended driver from HP Image Assistant) then reboot

Reinstall Radeon Pro driver (Using recommended driver from HP Image Assistant) then reboot

2) Uninstall ALL drivers

Reinstall Intel HD graphics driver (Using recommended driver from HP Image Assistant) then reboot

Reinstall Radeon Pro driver (Using recommended driver from AMD) then reboot

3) Turn off all security settings found in Windows Defender

4) Updating Win10

5) Updating all out-of-date drivers (Using recommended driver from HP Image Assistant)

6) Booting into safe mode.  This is OK, but no graphics drivers are enabled, so I would expect this to be OK.

   FYI... HP Image Assistant is the driver scan tool from HP for workstation class models

5 Replies
dannyshaw90
Journeyman III

For about a week now I've been having the same issue with the same hardware and found the cause to be atikmdag.sys!? using windows performance analyser, no matter which drivers I had installed. I've tried the latest drivers (20.Q2 and 20.Q1.2) through HP, AMD and Windows Update and I also tried older drivers direct from AMD's site (18.Q4.1-19.Q4.1) but every one caused the same issue and I had to remove the drivers with the AMDCleanupUtility in safe mode to stop it.

I'm not the most tech savvy person so I have elected to just leave my laptop running on the Intel graphics until I can be sure I won't have any problems, obviously this isn't ideal as I need it for CAD applications at work. I would like to know if anyone knows the actual root cause of the problem and which, if any, drivers I should try?  

jepper
Journeyman III

Same problem here. Tested different drivers but no luck.

Resource monitor reports "system" PID4 to write to log files in c:\windows\system32\AMD\ all the time

Really need help solving this.

Replying to nudge this.  I've been seeing the exact same problem.  WX 3100 GPU in a HP Zbook.  Hard to tell when it started but seems like a Fall Windows update.  

Anyone new to this thread probably already knows which led them to search for an AMD GPU issue but figuring out why 'system' was going nuts in the Windows Performance Monitor was not easy for non IT people like me.  Well I'll walk through what I found and how I found it in hopes that some AMD people can actually fix it.  This is what my mine looked like.  Consistent 'very high' "system" CPU usage.  The 'gpu' usage tracker is showing normal load, only jumps a bit when you actually do graphics stuff.  But the 'system' consistently stayed around 20%, even when doing nothing with the browser closed.  Some other googling indicates this may be an AMD service constantly polling if it has the latest driver or something like that.  If true it'd be pretty ironic.  image.png

This was a hint that it was graphics drivers thought, but not from AMD.  Before I did my first driver update, Intel graphics was a big contributor.  

The intel pro-set funny business went away but 'system' business remained.  But 'system' going nuts tells us nothing.  There's a ton of stuff going on there.  So my pal Google found this helpful thread on how to dig deeper:  https://superuser.com/questions/527401/troubleshoot-high-cpu-usage-by-the-system-process .  So I installed the " windows performance toolkit from this link as suggested by the article.   Installing this windows performance toolkit from this link as suggested by the article 

At first it looked like NTOSKRL was the culprit, which was disappointing as that's pretty vague.  

But then I realized I could keep opening the branches of that tree.  Oh look here, it was "atikmpag.sys" gooning me all along!

 

First thing I tried was updating the driver and saw that it was over a year old!  Apparently that annoying 'HP Support Assistant' software that regularly nags me with system's whole purpose is to keep everything everything fresh BUT the GPU.  Updated the driver through AMD website and seemed like it fixed the heavy cpu use issue.  Installed the AMD management software to have something at least checking for updates.  Seemed to make it worse.  In retrospect, probably coincidental. 

It was still having same issue with the most updated driver (like from November 2020).  The issue goes away by disabling the GPU in device manager.  Thanks to the original poster for mentioning you can also disable the Intel UHD Graphics 620 instead.  At least we have SOME option for running CAD right now.  My last attempt at fixing was to update the driver within the device mgr using the Windows service and that reverted it to version 27.20.11023.9002 published 9-9-20. I figured if it was from Microsoft then theoretically it's the latest 'tested' driver that plays nice with the most recent window update?  Well maybe, but that didn't fix it either.  

So no, I have no fix for this as of yet.

Well, I seem to have had some joy and maybe something you guys might be able to confirm?

It appears the issue is to do with Conexant audio drivers not playing nice with windows, hence Microsoft blocking ability to update to the latest (20H1 & 20H2) windows versions. No matter how I went about it I couldn't get Conexant drivers to update successfully but this morning I hit the end of my "pause updates until" window and got cumulative updates for 1909. 

Low and behold, my GPU is back working again on the same driver as you mentioned (last installed before I disabled it) 27.20.11023.9002 and I have yet to have any issues with the "System" hogging my CPU! *knocks on wood*

I am going to be attempting to update to 20H2 this weekend and I will post back with the results good or bad!

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cubic3d
Journeyman III

Just sharing my experience.  I scouring the internet and changed video drivers, updated windows, downgraded drivers, and tried every thing I could find.  I was just going to resort to keeping my AMD driver disabled.  Eventually I came across something about updating the Intel Dynamic Platform and Thermal Framework Driver.  I found an update from HP for my PC and that solved my problem instantly.  Hope that helps others out there.   

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