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If I step away from my laptop, after a few minutes, I'll often hear the fans spin up. I was wondering what process might be doing this so I left Task Manager open. Here's what I noticed was at the top when this happens:

enter image description here

If I move the mouse, the CPU usage of "System" drops and the fans spin down after a bit.

I noticed this popular question on superuser:

Troubleshoot High CPU usage by the "System" process

However, the approach there doesn't appear to be applicable since as I mention above, if interact with the system, the issue goes away. So If I attempt to use the diagnostic tools, the issue is not longer occuring.

Any suggestions on what might be causing 'System' to run at this high rate?

UPDATE

OK, I went ahead with approach in the linked post as recommended by the comments below.

For reference, here's how I started wpr.exe:

wpr.exe -start GeneralProfile

I then waited for the fans to spin up (took about 5 minutes). I left the system alone for about a minute. I then stopped wpr.exe:

wpr.exe -stop abc.etl

Here's the data as shown in Windows Performance Analyzer:

enter image description here

The linked post has a section on:

ntoskrnl.exe!RtlpGenericRandomPatternWorker

which seems to be the issue here. Looking into that now. :-)

UPDATE

When I open the Task Scheduler and look under:

Microsoft > Windows > MemoryDiagnostic > RunFullMemoryDiagnostic

I see the following:

enter image description here

UPDATE

After the issue occurred again, I refreshed Task Scheduler and indeed, the 'Last Run Time' for RunFullMemoryDiagnostic was updated:

enter image description here

So it seems that maybe when the system is idle, RunFullMemoryDiagnostic begins to run (fans spin up) and then it ends ("terminated unexpectedly"). Since it didn't complete, it just keeps trying.

If I do a google search for:

"RunFullMemoryDiagnostic" "the process terminated unexpectedly"

only 4 results come up.

UPDATE

For now, I've set RunFullMemoryDiagnostic to Disabled.

dharmatech
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  • It may just be normal processes checking for updates and scanning files for viruses. For some time now, Task Manager goes to 100% CPU for a few seconds. I open it and minimize to the system tray when not using it. If your system is otherwise normal (adjusting for the things above), there may not be any problem. – John Jan 21 '21 at 16:29
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    The answer by magicandre1981 most certainly applies to Windows 10. In fact the entire answer specifically mentions Windows 10. Have you performed any of the steps in the answer outlined by magicandre1981? – Ramhound Jan 21 '21 at 16:31
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    You start the diagnostic tools before the problem happens. – harrymc Jan 21 '21 at 20:37
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    Initially, can you get a ETL trace of this? For example: Open an admin prompt and run: wpr.exe -start GeneralProfile leave it running. Do you see the issue after leaving this for a couple of minutes? Hopefully yes. If you leave the problem happening for 10-20 seconds, then run: wpr.exe -stop C:\generalProfile.etl. At least at this point you have a trace that captures the issue. – HelpingHand Jan 21 '21 at 20:40
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    Once you have generated the appropriate report be sure to [edit] your question otherwise we won’t be notified of the anything – Ramhound Jan 21 '21 at 23:16
  • @Ramhound Yup, I just updated it with the analysis data. :-) Thanks for the encouragement to press on with magicandre1981's approach! – dharmatech Jan 21 '21 at 23:20
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    You need to expand the individual items to list the contents. We cannot explain anything based off that screenshot of that report – Ramhound Jan 21 '21 at 23:26
  • @harrymc It usually takes a few minutes for the issue to kick in and I originally thought the data dump would be too large. However, I went ahead and did as you suggested and it wasn't prohibitively large (2GB or so). I've updated my question with the resulting data. Thanks for your suggestion! – dharmatech Jan 21 '21 at 23:34
  • @HelpingHand Thank you for the suggestion. I've updated the question with the results of the analysis. – dharmatech Jan 21 '21 at 23:36
  • @Ramhound As far as I can tell, I've expanded the elements as much as possible. Note that it shows ntoskrnl.exe!RtlpGenericRandomPatternWorker which is mentioned in the linked post. – dharmatech Jan 21 '21 at 23:42
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    So if you edit the task - "Conditions" say, from the default of 10 mins to 20 mins of idle that all fits? If you manually start it the CPU usage occurs? What about, if you run Process Monitor, manually kick off the task, leave it 1 min. Stop the capture (include System process), in the Tree view, find the svchost process that is the Scheduler service, i.e. C:\WINDOWS\system32\svchost.exe -k netsvcs -p -s Schedule. A child of this is the "C:\WINDOWS\system32\taskhostw.exe" process. Does it look to be having issues? – HelpingHand Jan 22 '21 at 00:15
  • @HelpingHand Yup, if I manually start RunFullMemoryDiagnostic, CPU goes to about 12% and stays there for many minutes. I've set RunFullMemoryDiagnostic to Disabled for now. – dharmatech Jan 22 '21 at 00:18
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    Could you in the Task Scheduler show a screenshot for RunFullMemoryDiagnostic of its Triggers pane? – harrymc Jan 22 '21 at 10:02
  • @harrymc The Triggers section is empty for RunFullMemoryDiagnostic. – dharmatech Jan 22 '21 at 13:06
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    Sorry, my (deleted) answer was based on a wrong click. My Triggers section is also empty for RunFullMemoryDiagnostic, so it seems to be started automatically by Windows. You could keep it disabled, or start doing general troubleshooting for Windows. I can make suggestions for that, if you wish to spend more time on the problem. – harrymc Jan 22 '21 at 13:47
  • PowerShell command to disable the task: Disable-ScheduledTask -TaskName "\Microsoft\Windows\MemoryDiagnostic\RunFullMemoryDiagnostic" – Artur INTECH Feb 24 '23 at 10:10

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