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Consider this Windows 8.1 machine (in-place upgrade from Windows 8) with differing reports on its CPU usage. The machine is idle, and has been for 3 days. There are no CPU intensive tasks running currently nor over the 3 day idle period.
Windows Task Manager is reporting CPU usage constantly at an incredibly high value (and increasing over time!) at around 75%.
Process Explorer from SysInternals reports that the CPU usage is much different at around 42%
How does Process Explorer report 42.14% usage, but its columns report Idle at 57%, with the sum of the other processes not even approaching 10%?
Which of these two values should I trust more, and why should it be trusted over the other measurement?
How can I actually determine which process is causing Task Manager to report its values?
These Proc Exp metrics were taken with Administrator privileges, and with option 'Show Details for All Processes'
I assume these screenshots were taken with a short timespan of one another? Both tools are written by Microsoft so I would argue they are both accurate. – Ramhound – 2013-11-12T16:43:15.367
5Are you running ProcessExplorer as an administrator? It won't show processes that are hidden from the unprivileged user account unless you select File > Show Details for All Processes. – Darth Android – 2013-11-12T16:43:27.513
Thanks Darth and Ram, I repro'd and updated the screens using your advice, and it shows basically the same. Yes, all taken in same 2 min period – p.campbell – 2013-11-12T16:53:39.017
the only trusted why is to capture the kernel data with xperf: http://pastebin.com/pgE11HRD
– magicandre1981 – 2013-11-12T19:05:59.113