Steam, Battlenet, & 'System' using a lot of CPU when downloading stuff

This never used to happen until a couple of months ago. Whenever Steam, or Battlenet are downloading something, my computer starts to lag really bad. I go into task manager, and 75-100% of my CPU is being used, most of which is coming from the app the is downloading something (Steam, or Battlenet), and 'System'. It took me forever to find a solution for this problem for the Steam problem, but I eventually did find a solution, it requires me to go command prompt, and type "bcdedit /set useplatformclock false", and then restart my computer. It totally fixes the problem on Steam... But only temporarily. It seems to reset back after a few days (or a few restarts), and then I have to do the process over again. Is there a permanent way to fix this problem? Like make the "bcdedit /set useplatformclock false" last forever, instead of just resetting after a few restarts? Also, it that solution doesn't seem to work as good for Battlenet as it does Steam. Please help!

Hi there. We'll need more to go on. Please either fill out your system specs in your Settings Control Panel or list them here, especially CPU, amount of memory, and antivirus.

Intel Core i5-6500 CPU @ 3.20GHz
16GB DDR4 RAM
ZoneAlarm

I think you shouldn't put partial answers in your questions (even if it is tempting) as it may distract from what you are asking.

First bcdedit /set useplatformclock false

You can see if this setting is active for a specific Boot Loader if you just run bcdedit on its own with no parameters:

Code:

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \WINDOWS\system32\winload.exe
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \WINDOWS
resumeobject            {2e6e9ce8-0ecd-11e7-b13b-c54b6a88e609}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard
hypervisorlaunchtype    Auto
useplatformclock        No

From checking that you can check if it is being reset (or deleted) but that then leads to a question - why on earth do you think using one clock over another would decrease CPU use? Changing this value is really only for debugging ancient programs and it is pretty unlikely all these companies have ballsed up their download programs with such a trivial fix available.

After all Windows has used system clock since XP - High Precision Event Timer - Wikipedia

Of course you may be right and Steam have bizarrely (or by mistake) included some bug that relies on functionality not existing since before XP. It is possible but but I'd get of that change with bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock

Your real problem is high CPU when downloading and I'd bet a weeks salary has nothing to do with that bcdedit setting.

I might be wrong though, and assuming I am, if you are over (or under) clocking try without. Make sure your cmos/pram battery is OK (i.e. the time is OK after a non network connected cold restart) and your system time is set right. It is possible (although I think rather unlikely) that somehow the OS is wasting cycles trying to synchronise the time between what the local Steam client and what Steam Servers think it is.

If you are still getting the problem then run a trace with perfmon and upload it. I'm not yet clever enough to read perfmon traces but either someone else will I'm sure.

lx07 said:

Of course you may be right and Steam have bizarrely (or by mistake) included some bug that relies on functionality not existing since before XP. It is possible but but I'd get of that change with bcdedit /deletevalue useplatformclock

This is the article that I discovered, and it was the only thing that has worked for me to this point: SOLVED: Computer Hangs/Lags When Downloading From Steam - Appuals.com

NotEvenJauuuwn said:

This is the article that I discovered, and it was the only thing that has worked for me to this point: SOLVED: Computer Hangs/Lags When Downloading From Steam - Appuals.com

I'm not doubting the result - just the solution seems a bit simple. It is masking something else.

If Steam (who have millions of users) realized their download program was shit then they would have changed it.

All I'm saying is this "fix" is to make a PC work in a manner that hasn't been used since the 1990's (unless you bought a PC in 2005 with an old OS I suppose).

lx07 said:

I'm not doubting the result - just the solution seems a bit simple. It is masking something else.

If Steam (who have millions of users) realized their download program was shit then they would have changed it.

All I'm saying is this "fix" is to make a PC work in a manner that hasn't been used since the 1990's (unless you bought a PC in 2005 with an old OS I suppose).

Nope, PC built last year, with Windows 10, and the problem only started occurring a couple months ago.

NotEvenJauuuwn said:

Nope, PC built last year, with Windows 10, and the problem only started occurring a couple months ago.

Probably you would be better off talking to Steam.

If you want upload a perfmon trace. I'll have a look. I'm not an expert but for sure others are (I'll try anyway) and I do think your problem is interesting.

lx07 said:

Probably you would be better off talking to Steam.

If you want upload a perfmon trace. I'll have a look. I'm not an expert but for sure others are (I'll try anyway) and I do think your problem is interesting.

I'm talking with the steam community, some think it's ZoneAlarm, since it's know to give PC's problems. And I uninstalled it, and am now just using Windows defender, and so far it's looking normal. Let's hope this lasts.

NotEvenJauuuwn said:

I'm talking with the steam community, some think it's ZoneAlarm, since it's know to give PC's problems. And I uninstalled it, and am now just using Windows defender, and so far it's looking normal. Let's hope this lasts.

That's good so far. Was wondering if was your AV. That's why I asked for it. I use Defender as well. No problems with infection at all.

Hope that solution does it for you. Please let us know if it does. Good luck.