Last week, both of my computers decided to misbehave at almost the same time. Windows Defender was the first to misbehave by hogging 40% of my CPU, which left my fan running constantly and my computer getting pretty warm ... this was on my Surface Pro 4, running Windows 10. Next, Windows Update did nearly the same thing, again hogging CPU and causing a constantly running fan and excess heat … this was on my Dell Venue 11 Pro, running Windows 8.1. Luckily for me, the Dell didn’t start having problems until after I had resolved the problems on the Surface, but I only got a day of breathing room. Talk about a frustrating week!!! So, how did I fix these naughty computers? Read on …
Windows Defender
The weird thing about this problem was that this computer wasn’t even idle at the time … Defender isn’t supposed to be running any kind of Scan while the computer is in use, and I was *definitely* using it when this mess started! But, I left it running, assuming it would finish up soon … 4 hours later, it was still running! I realized later (when trying a Quick Scan on my other computer), that my scans only take about 3-8 minutes, not hours and hours and hours!! That should have been my first clue. I Googled and saw several suggestions, none of which helped:
- I tried rebooting, didn’t help.
- I set it to exclude scanning the file MsMPEng.exe, didn’t help.
- I tried scanning with sfc (System File Check, using /verifyonly rather than /scannow), it told me I had no problems.
I hibernated overnight, because I didn’t want it overheating during the night. Obviously, when I brought it back from hibernation the next morning, it continued running at 40% CPU, as expected, and I shut it down again.
Later that day, I ran Defender from its UI on my *other* computer and I noticed that it shows a progress bar and a running count of the files it is scanning (I guess I never bothered to run it from the UI before). So, I decided to try a Quick Scan on *this* computer, even though Defender was still scanning (the 40% CPU). Lo and behold, the UI showed that it got stuck after scanning 12,471 files … number 12,472 just stayed up there and now my CPU usage rose to nearly 80%! Yikes!! I shut it down again, and worked the rest of the day from my other computer (I do all of my development work on VM’s that are hosted somewhere else on our network, so I could actually work on stuff from either computer).
Over the course of the day, I periodically started it up just to check my email or to try something I found while Googling (and hoping that just the act of restarting it might eventually magically make it stop), and then would shut it down again because no magic happened and the CPU was still running high. The only thing different that I did before shutting it down that night was to Disable the Scheduled Scan in the Task Scheduler, so it would at least not keep trying to run a scan.
The next morning after startup, it continued misbehaving and I continued shutting it down and starting it back up again to check my email. After a couple of rounds of this up and down, finally magic *did* happen! All of a sudden it started working. I think that Disabling the Scheduled Scan definitely helped. But the real kicker was my discovery from a fellow MVP (Derek Knight) as to *why* I probably had the problem in the first place.
Back in the day (ending with Windows 7), a full ShutDown was always better than a Restart because, basically, when you started back up from a full ShutDown it was starting up totally “from scratch”, like a cold boot. A Restart didn’t shut everything down before it came back up and didn’t do all of the “checks” that a full start up did. But now, starting with Windows 8, it’s totally the opposite behavior! And the problem that I was having was most likely related to always doing a ShutDown. Derek says that “Defender has an annoying habit of getting hung up on scanning a non existent driver that doesn't exist any longer. A full Restart loads a new instance of the drivers. That normally solves it. This can also happen when you shut down, if Fast Startup is enabled. After 3 or 4 start ups, some existing drivers don't fully load so Defender sees them as corrupt. They are in memory but not physically able to be scanned.”
Fast Startup was most likely the culprit … just prior to all hell breaking loose with my Defender problems, I had been having a lot of issues/warnings about a corrupted bluetooth mouse driver. Restarting seemed to solve the problem, but sometimes it didn’t (probably when I ShutDown instead of Restarted). Anyway, read this very interesting article from “How-To Geek” about Fast Startup. I turned mine off and have not had any problems since:
http://www.howtogeek.com/243901/the-pros-and-cons-of-windows-10s-fast-startup-mode/
Windows Update
No sooner had I fixed the Defender problem on my Surface, then my Dell Venue started misbehaving with Windows Update. Arrrrgggghhhh!!! =0( Apparently, Update was getting stuck while “Checking for Updates”. Maybe it was stuck on a file download or maybe it was something else, I don’t know what. I only know that it would run up my CPU to about 25-30% and never stop!
So, I ended up shutting off Windows Update until I could find a solution. To turn it off go to Control Panel | System and Security | Windows Update | Change Settings and choose “Never check for updates” … like this:
I had found a few suggestions to try while Googling, like running the built-in Update Troubleshooter, which you can find by typing “troubleshooter” in the Start | Search box and click the Troubleshooter result. Then start Troubleshooting by clicking on System and Security | Fix Problems With Windows Update:
It didn’t work for me, but it’s a good starting place.
Next, it was “How-to Geek” to the rescue again:
http://www.howtogeek.com/247380/how-to-fix-windows-update-when-it-gets-stuck/
The How-To Geek offers several things you can try to fix the problem. I had already tried one or two of them that I had found from my previous Googling. I decided that I was so sick and tired of trying every little suggestion I found when none of them ever worked, that I was going to skip to the end of the article and try the sure-fire, easy way (according to How-To Geek, it has always worked for them in the past when none of the other solutions did) … and that is using the third-party tool called WSUS Offline Update. The link to download it is provided in the above article, as well as instructions as to what to do with it once you’ve downloaded it. What WSUS does is download a bunch of Windows Updates, depending on which Windows version you’ve got and which downloads you’ve already installed. Be forewarned that it may take a while to download if you’re way behind on updates. Mine took all night to download (but, my Internet connection stinks … so YMMV). Installing the Updates took a *lot* less time than downloading them. But, it’s the end result that matters and when all is said and done, this *worked*!!!! No more stalling when it’s trying to Check for Updates!
Oh, and don’t forget to change the Windows Updates settings back to “Install Updates Automatically”.
