A Random Solution to 100% CPU Usage in Windows

Like a zillion people on the Internet, my laptop (a Dell XPS 7590) occasionally starts going nuts with the fans, because a CPU core is pegged at 100% for no obvious reason.

Task Manager/Resource Monitor all uselessly show it’s System, and trying to debug further in Process Explorer just leads you down a rabbit hole of potential Windows problems.

After picking a few of these at complete random I luckily eventually stumbled across something that fixed it – changing the Power Options related to USB settings. Specifically, disabling USB selective suspend setting when the system was plugged in.

This immediately made the 100% CPU pegging go away, solving a problem that had plagued me for over a year. No idea if it was related to USB devices I had plugged in – I had the same problem at work and in the office, where I have completely different equipment.

No idea what the potential impact to this is but I find it hard to believe it’s worse than my CPU spinning randomly.

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