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Active: 1513 users

conhost.exe causing me to lag.

Forum Index > Tech Support
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Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 26 2015 02:51 GMT
#1
Hi,

So the other day I had to unplug everything from my PC to move it out of my room due to things. I just plugged everything back together yesterday and now conhost.exe keeps flicking on and off under Processes when I go to Task Manager. It's apparently causing my computer to lag and every time it flicks on while I'm playing CS:GO, it causes me to drop from 200fps to 50fps then it goes back to normal after like a second, then back down to 50fps, rinse and repeat every few seconds.

When I restart my PC, conhost.exe is not active. After a few hours, however, it starts going wacky.

Currently running Windows 7. Anyone know what I can do?
Writer
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
July 26 2015 02:53 GMT
#2
Run malwarebytes for starters
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 26 2015 02:53 GMT
#3
Yeah, doing that as we speak. Will report back after it's done.

Thanks for the quick reply lol.
Writer
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 26 2015 03:25 GMT
#4
Ran the Malwarebytes, restarted, and now conhost.exe is blinking on and off from the get go. Also, now there's a powercfg.exe blinking on and off... what.
Writer
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-07-26 03:29:57
July 26 2015 03:29 GMT
#5
It's not making me drop FPS though. The lag is gone. o_o At least for now, dunno if it'll start up again in a few hours.
Writer
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 26 2015 09:39 GMT
#6
I seem to still be experiencing FPS drops here and there. I think something might just be causing some memory leakage or something.
Writer
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
July 26 2015 10:11 GMT
#7
you can see memory usage etc easily
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 26 2015 11:32 GMT
#8
I'd just really like to know why conhost.exe (and now powercfg.exe) are switching on and off every few seconds. qq
Writer
DSK
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
England1110 Posts
July 26 2015 12:10 GMT
#9
Take a look at these.

conhost.exe deals with the command console (or specifically, dragging and dropping things into it instead of typing), and powercfg.exe deals with changing your PC's power settings using the command console

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc748940(v=ws.10).aspx

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/4996/what-is-conhost.exe-and-why-is-it-running/

Did your issues happen before you moved your PC?
**@ YT: SC2POVs at https://www.youtube.com/c/SC2POVsTV | https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/SC2POVs @**
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 26 2015 18:58 GMT
#10
Nope =/

PC seemed perfectly fine. No idea what happened.
Writer
DSK
Profile Blog Joined February 2015
England1110 Posts
July 26 2015 20:11 GMT
#11
Have you perhaps tried using system restore, and see if the issue disappears that way? I'd recommend creating a new restore point just before you do try and restore to an earlier time in just in case.
**@ YT: SC2POVs at https://www.youtube.com/c/SC2POVsTV | https://liquipedia.net/starcraft2/SC2POVs @**
eKg
Profile Joined March 2010
United States29 Posts
July 26 2015 23:48 GMT
#12
Souma,

Are you using a desktop or laptop? Does the process start to act up after (almost) exactly 3 hours? Being that you have seen some problems with the .exe popping up IMMEDIATELY after restart, or sometimes 3 hours later, we could try to figure out if this is a program that is scripted to run and stop constantly.

Let me know if I can help. I work in tech support :x
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 27 2015 00:07 GMT
#13
DSK: I hate system restoring T_T

eKg: Desktop. At first it acted up after somewhere around three hours yeah, but now it's blinking on and off immediately after restart.
Writer
eKg
Profile Joined March 2010
United States29 Posts
July 27 2015 00:19 GMT
#14
Systematically, we should figure out if this is a Windows problem or a virus/infection problem. Run this, https://security.symantec.com/nbrt/npe.aspx and get back to me. Norton Power Eraser scans for root kits. Did your previous malwarebytes scan return anything?
eKg
Profile Joined March 2010
United States29 Posts
July 27 2015 00:22 GMT
#15
Additionally, have you tried booting into safe mode? If it happens in safe mode, it could be a file problem within Windows. If NOT, we know that it's NOT Windows and could potentially be a virus.

Also, have you updated all video drivers?
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 27 2015 20:24 GMT
#16
NPE didn't find anything. Video drivers are all updated. Haven't booted into Safe Mode yet because it apparently isn't F8.

Update: So I discovered that my FPS spikes weren't due to memory leakage but rather my CPU. Checked my CPU temp and it's running at 65C.

Ouch.
Writer
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-07-27 21:17:44
July 27 2015 21:17 GMT
#17
hwinfo (www.hwinfo.com) should show CPU temps as well as clock speeds and an indicator for if it's throttling or not (sensors tab has most of the info and you can double click on stuff there to open a display for the stat over time)

depending on the CPU (and the load), 65c can either be completely normal or very hot
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 28 2015 11:06 GMT
#18
Downloaded it. My CPU is indeed throttling. What2do :|
Writer
Ropid
Profile Joined March 2009
Germany3557 Posts
July 28 2015 12:41 GMT
#19
Did you ever take a look into the inside of this PC you use? If you never did, it might just be a terrible amount of dust and cleaning might fix everything.

If things look fine on the inside, you need to check the cooler, see if it's mounted securely. The Intel coolers you get with the normal Intel CPUs like to pop out of the mounting holes in the board by themselves. If you notice something wrong, don't take the cooler off unless you have new thermal paste for replacing the old one, instead just try to push the pin that is loose back into its mounting hole.
"My goal is to replace my soul with coffee and become immortal."
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
July 28 2015 17:00 GMT
#20
system specs (at least cpu model) would still help
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
Last Edited: 2015-07-28 18:35:51
July 28 2015 18:35 GMT
#21
Yeah everything looks fine on the inside. Just woke up and left my PC on and now the CPU temp is like 76C (but apparently not throttling as of this very moment).

Processor: Intel i5-3570K @ 3.4 GHz
RAM: 8 GB DDR3
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti
Windows 7, 64-bit

Could it be that I just need new thermal paste? Never actually readded any =x
Writer
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
July 28 2015 19:22 GMT
#22
Thermal paste is usually good for years, but you could have a bad cooler mount or very bad application of the thermal paste hurting temps. Your idle temps should be around 10c higher than your room temperatures, load temps can be hotter though. A lot of people run them at like 70-80 under load, but they won't throttle until 100+
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Ropid
Profile Joined March 2009
Germany3557 Posts
July 28 2015 19:23 GMT
#23
What cooler do you have? The simple one from Intel that comes in the box with the CPU?

Thermal paste can stay fine for a very long time. Temperatures might get a bit bad after a bunch of years, but bad enough that you have to replace it is basically only something for people that are overclocking.
"My goal is to replace my soul with coffee and become immortal."
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 28 2015 19:29 GMT
#24
Yeah Ropid.
Writer
Ropid
Profile Joined March 2009
Germany3557 Posts
July 28 2015 19:33 GMT
#25
That cooler has no screws or anything strong as a mounting system. It has four plastic pins that you are supposed to push into holes on the board, and they'll snap into place there. Look up videos describing how the cooler is installed on Youtube to see what this is all about.

One of those pins probably popped out of its mounting hole. That happens pretty often to people. Check for that, and push it back into place.
"My goal is to replace my soul with coffee and become immortal."
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 29 2015 18:41 GMT
#26
Okay. CPU isn't throttling anymore. It reached up to 100C yesterday but then I went in and cleaned the crap out of the cooler.

I thought the cooler was clean because the blades of the fan looked it. But beneath the fan it was all black, which I thought was just a part of the cooler. Little did I know that it was actually all dust and it was blocking the ventilation. Took some time to clean lol.

My CPU is now running between 55C and 65C. Seems a tad hot but might be okay?

Now for that pesky conhost.exe and powercfg.exe...
Writer
Cyro
Profile Blog Joined June 2011
United Kingdom20326 Posts
July 29 2015 20:47 GMT
#27
My CPU is now running between 55C and 65C. Seems a tad hot but might be okay?


If that's idle temperatures, it's way too hot. If it's temps at sustained 100% cpu load, it's cold
"oh my god my overclock... I got a single WHEA error on the 23rd hour, 9 minutes" -Belial88
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 29 2015 21:46 GMT
#28
Running at around 40%-50%.
Writer
Souma
Profile Blog Joined May 2010
2nd Worst City in CA8938 Posts
July 31 2015 03:37 GMT
#29
Looks like conhost.exe and powercfg.exe stopped bugging out the moment I updated Adobe Reader.

Eh.
Writer
rajan23
Profile Joined September 2018
1 Post
September 07 2018 06:15 GMT
#30
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