CPU threads/cores being randomly loaded

[xman2007]

Not sure what's going on, had a couple of issues with my computer since I just transferred it's contents into a new case which makes 0 sense.... anyhow, this is the latest one, I'll be using the PC for browsing usually only having FF open and a few tabs, nothing strenuous and it's usually just sitting above idle and CPU temps are around 41-42c, nothing to worry about, and the only reason I found out this was happening is because I can hear my case fans spinning up like they are set to do when the CPU/system temps reach a certain point, so I'll be browsing the web, fans spin up and I open hwinfo and it shows that 2 of my CPU cores are loaded to 100%, the CPU temp is up at around 62-64c and the CPU package power is between 67w-77w where it is normally around 22w.... bear in mind I'm only using the browser, now.... this is where it gets really weird, when I run taskmgr to see what's using the CPU cores, the usage immediately drops and temps go back to normal so I can't see what app or process is using the CPU to cause the high usage and increased temps. Included a SS of hwinfo when the 2 cores in question (and it's always the same two) are being loaded and you can clearly see the temp and CPU package power are not what they should be for just running firefox.

I've downloaded CCleaner, Malwarebytes and Panda cloud virus and they have not found anything so I'm at a loss as to what is causing this behaviour.

 

[natr0n]

Open task manager see whats using the most cpu usage under process tab.

 

[xman2007]

Open task manager see whats using the most cpu usage under process tab.

Take it you didnt read the whole post?

 

[natr0n]

Take it you didnt read the whole post?

Try this maybe

Process Explorer - Sysinternals

Find out what files, registry keys and other objects processes have open, which DLLs they have loaded, and more.

docs.microsoft.com

 

[Vayra86]

Is hardware acceleration on in the browser? Try turning it off and replicate the behavior. If its not happening, might be a GPU issue, access time or just stuck on initializing or something.

Its clear something happens in the browser while you have it as a focus window. Can also be a smart malware hiding away.

 

[xman2007]

Just an update, this was still happening today, I hadn't had a chance to look at it again since the last post hence I haven't replied until now, however it happened again today and as usual when I fired up taskmgr even though it is set to display the highest using CPU apps, the CPU usage drops immediately before I have time to notice any potentially untowards apps/processes.... So I opened up resource monitor thinking that if it is something untowards then I might catch it out with that if not taskmngr, doing my usual browsing whilst resource monitor was behind firefox waiting for me to bring it forward should the fans start to spin up and CPU being utilised more than it should be, nothing happened.... after digging around in resource monitor and looking at suspended processes I came across something called unpacker.exe that had been suspended, not recognising the name I googled it and stumbled upon a Reddit thread that detailed the same kind of behaviour (CPU use going up, fans spinning up and increased temps etc) so I removed the file manually (it was nearly 300MB though someone on the Reddit thread said there's was like 133GB seems like some kind of crypto trojan perhaps? and it's usually located in Appdata folder, I'll keep monitoring the CPU usage situation and reply back if it doesn't seem to be the culprit but straight away I knew from the name that it seemed odd and even though there is a legit app called unpacker (an unzipping tool) I'd never used this before.

The good news is just physically deleting the file folder it's in seems to get rid of it, I've done a manual search on all my drives and that seems to be the only copy of it on my system, so fingers crossed

Oh, btw HERE is the @R thread, seems fairly new/unknown if MS/Panda/CCleaner and MB couldn't pick it up....