Why is my CPU usage spiking constantly? Nitro 5 AN515-52

andrewg1337

Recently bought an Acer Nitro 5 AN515-52 with an Intel Core i5-8300H and a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060, 8GB RAM. I have had this problem since I bought the laptop (3 days ago) and I don't know how to fix it. The CPU usage periodically spikes and the GPU usage of the GTX 1060 drops and at the same time the Intel GPU usage spikes. All of this together causes an FPS drop in games which makes it stutter and is really annoying. But I also find that after this happens in a game it also happens in my web browser, even as I'm typing this, but by this point the Nvidia GPU is no longer active. Anyone know what might be causing this?

I have also found that the regular CPU usage spikes begin as soon as I load up and open task manager, and persist even when I am not using any programs.

So far I have tried:

Clean Install of Windows 10

Reinstalling Drivers with DDU

Intelligent Standby List Cleaner

I have also used programs to monitor by CPU and GPU temperatures to see if that was an issue but it doesn't appear to be because the issue seems to happen no matter what the temperature of my components is.

I have tried changing all my performance settings to prefer maximum performance.

I don't know what other options I have but it's making games unplayable because of this stutter, however it is much less noticeable in some games than others e.g: In Minecraft it is a very noticeable stutter, but in Black Ops 3 the stutter is much less noticeable and doesn't get in the way as much.

MaClane

Good afternoon andrewg1337 !

Starting from the beginning, are you using the right settings to play?

These would be:

1- all drivers and windows must be properly updated
2- the device must be set to use the high performance power plan of Windows
3- the battery must be charged 100% before playing
4- Battery should be set to advanced power options for maximum performance.
5- Game applications must be set in dedicated GPU Dashboard (AMD or Nvida if you have one) to be the main
6- The appliance must be connected directly to a properly grounded power outlet without any power adapter.

andrewg1337

MaClane said:

Good afternoon andrewg1337 !

Starting from the beginning, are you using the right settings to play?

These would be:

1- all drivers and windows must be properly updated
2- the device must be set to use the high performance power plan of Windows
3- the battery must be charged 100% before playing
4- Battery should be set to advanced power options for maximum performance.
5- Game applications must be set in dedicated GPU Dashboard (AMD or Nvida if you have one) to be the main
6- The appliance must be connected directly to a properly grounded power outlet without any power adapter.

Yes I have made sure all these settings are on. I have also found I even get lag while doing normal web browsing and the freezing always occurs when the cpu usage jumps up like shown in the graph. 

andrewg1337

MaClane said:

Good afternoon andrewg1337 !

Starting from the beginning, are you using the right settings to play?

These would be:

1- all drivers and windows must be properly updated
2- the device must be set to use the high performance power plan of Windows
3- the battery must be charged 100% before playing
4- Battery should be set to advanced power options for maximum performance.
5- Game applications must be set in dedicated GPU Dashboard (AMD or Nvida if you have one) to be the main
6- The appliance must be connected directly to a properly grounded power outlet without any power adapter.

Yes I have made sure I have all of those settings. I also sometimes get lag in normal use of the laptop e.g. web browsing and it always freezes whenever the cpu usage jumps up like what is shown in the graph. 

andrewg1337

MaClane said:

Good afternoon andrewg1337 !

Starting from the beginning, are you using the right settings to play?

These would be:

1- all drivers and windows must be properly updated
2- the device must be set to use the high performance power plan of Windows
3- the battery must be charged 100% before playing
4- Battery should be set to advanced power options for maximum performance.
5- Game applications must be set in dedicated GPU Dashboard (AMD or Nvida if you have one) to be the main
6- The appliance must be connected directly to a properly grounded power outlet without any power adapter.

Yes I have made sure I have all of those settings. I also sometimes get lag in normal use of the laptop e.g. web browsing and it always freezes whenever the cpu usage jumps up like what is shown in the graph.