hp laptop ssd windows 7 cpu spikes

My wife's laptop with windows 7 on has 16 gb ram and 512 gb ssd. For some time now the cpu on it spikes to almost 100% after the first five minutes or so and stays like that for about 5 to 10 minutes. During that time, everything comes to a crawl, nothing moves. My wife is sometimes on Zoom, and there would be no sound, and things don't move much. She has to wait it out. Then the computer calms down to normal.

I checked the processes in the background. I couldn't find anything which might cause the problem. I tried this morning Adobe Lightroom and quickly moved some pictures around, then the CPU spiked. And when I closed Lightroom (by using 'end process'), it calmed down. It probably would have anyway after about 10 minutes.

I disabled a few start-ups with no apparent result.

I wonder if anyone is familiar with this problem and found a solution?

 

What AV software is being used?

 

It's AVAST.

 

I just ran Avast Smart Scan. Also, Malware Bytes and CCleaner. But Haven't found anything to report.

 

Because Avast is 3rd party AV - it is possible that it is using more resources when you start up doing it's scan.
Again, you need a 3rd.party AV as MS do not support W7 any longer.
You don't see this in W10 when Defender is running as it is very light on resources.

 

Avast is 3rd party Av. So what do you think I should do?

 

Unfortunately I do not know of any 3rd party AV that has a lower resource drag. You will be unable to get the MS AV for W7 because MS have deemed it end of life (no longer supported).
I think it will be matter of living with it Moorty while your wife continues to use W7'
It might pay to check with the advice available re making your OS run better provided by Evan Omo.
This is headed How to Optimize W7 and is in the section at the head of this Forum. (W7).

 

It does have boot-time scan. It only goes to work when you run it (or full scan). Or else, it's idle. Besides, I don't see where it could be disabled, unless I disable the whole Avast.

 

Found this in a Forum chat about Avast:
Just a little segue way : Even with avast! Free on default settings - I had to tick the "Load avast! services only after loading other system services" option under troubleshooting. My reason for this was that avast! Free was preventing my notebook connecting to my wireless network for some reason. Anyway - that's fixed it - although I'm not quite sure if that's the right thing to do.
Is this of any help?

 

Thank you, retired learner: I am afraid I don't quite follow your instructions: Where do I find the option of 'troubleshooting'? I didn't see any on the Avast opening screen. I checked on the Protection - Wi-fi scan screen and ran the scan on both Home and Public and the software came with the "no vulnerabilities found" on both. But I didn't find any troubleshooting area. Did you have the same problem? Was yours also with Windows 7? My wife's computer connects with the wireless fine. I didn't see any problems there. Where else could the problem lie?

 

Give me some time to recheck the info I found in that Forum.
We've got the Americas Cup being sailed here in NZ which is the hot topic at the moment.

 

No problem, take your time, please.

 

I've had to fire up my W7 Home Premium 64bit 240GB SSD on my previous Desktop.
Avast is running on this OS for the obvious reason.
I clicked on the Orb > Avast > (upper RIGHT of Avast page) > Menu > Settings > Troubleshooting > Delay Avast Startup is available to check box.
Once you've done that > Close out. (Red square upper left of Avast page).
Reboot the laptop to allow change to take place and see what speed you have at Startup.

 

I understand the screens and clicking. I can see all that. But could you tell the Startup speed of what you are talking about? I need to know that before implementing your suggestion. Remember the spike of cpu lasts for only about 5-10 minutes, a few minutes (5-10) after the laptop is booted. It doesn't do that when it is woken up from sleep.

 

I can only suggest that the Startup sequence has the Avast AV going through it's AV setup at the same time as MS is opening it's OS. Hence the slow down.
Waking from sleep - I would think the AV has already been initialised and would not need to restart it's software.
Have you tried the Delay Avast startup?
You can always reset it if you do not notice any differences.

 

I have changed the setting to delayed startup and restarted the laptop. I tested it and my wife did too, twice at least, and the behavior of the cpu spike has not changed. While the spike is going on the computer is simply inoperable. Even the touchpad doesn't work. But after it calms down, it's back to normal.

So, I reset the antivirus back to its defaults.

 

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/p...YYS_2XwNFjzCrJj61Bt3VMw4llJrJI8gaAmhdEALw_wcB

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes

 

I wonder if Zoom is sitting open all the time waiting for someone to call her? If it is, shut it off and see if that helps.