Opera causing 100% CPU even when Opera is closed

A Former User

Hi,

I've had a strange thing happening to my computer for some time and I've just narrowed it down to the Opera Browser. I was wondering if people are having a similar issue.

For a while now my computer's CPU would run at 100%. It wasn't one process hogging the CPU it was 5-10 processes taking a lot more than it should, and it would randomly change. End task one of the processes and the CPU would just jump on to another process. Its not just the CPU is reporting 100% usage it actually was, it was booting to over 4Ghz, the voltage would go up and it would get hotter.

If I changed my computer's power plan, to something else, the CPU would idle down low again however it wouldn't take long before that power plan was idling at 100%.

If I went to the settings of the power plan when I have the high CPU usage and select the "restore default settings for this plan" the CPU would idle correctly. Utill I Opened Opera. Then the CPU would jump to 100% most of it taken by Opera; but closing Opera browser the CPU would not return to normal idle until I reset the power plan to default settings.

If I went to power saving power plan, then opened Opera. That power plan would cause 100% CPU. I close Opera, change the power plan to Balanced, the CPU would idle correctly; open, Opera, and 100% CPU would happen on the Balanced power plan. Closing Opera and change the power plan to Power Saving, the CPU will still idle at 100%. Change the power plan to Performance and it would idle correctly. It seems what ever power plan was active when I open Opera would cause that power plan to idle the CPU at 100% until I reset the power plan to default settings..

I have one power plan Ryzen Balanced which I can't fix as it doesn't have the option to restore to default.

I have uninstalled Opera, deleted all the files and folders associated with it, reinstalled Opera, and instantly get 100% CPU when it opens. Opening Opera seems to cause any active power plan to have a minimum processor state to 100%.

I have formated my computer so many times this year trying to find out what it causing it and it seems to have something to do with Opera.

Has anyone else had this issue? I was hoping to find a more refined cause as Opera has been my go to browser for years.

donq

donq

I can see at least two possible causes:

some problem with video drivers - disable hardware acceleration in Opera
some problem with third party antivirus or security suite, which doesn't know Opera and monitors its network traffic or disk access - add Opera to its exclusions

How about Chrome browser - does it cause excessive CPU usage?

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@srrae You can check Opera's task manager to see if and what is using so much CPU.

jwillin

jwillin

Any luck on this? I have the same exact problem.

donq

donq @jwillin

@jwillin said in Opera causing 100% CPU even when Opera is closed:

Any luck on this? I have the same exact problem.

And your responses to my and @leocg questions and suggestions are?

jwillin

jwillin

I have tried:

Disabling hardware acceleration and toggling advanced settings like javascript.
Applying different display drivers
The Opera task manager shows priorty cpu usage on display driver (like 3%), but doesn't match the 100% usage on Task manager
IDLE disable CPU power management is being turned off for sure because I can see it toggle.
no live wallpaper or weird addons active in Opera, animations turned off.

Happens with Edge browser too but after about 45 second delay. So different behavior but same result.
Doesn't happen with Chrome or Firefox

donq

donq @jwillin

@jwillin
Strange, esp Edge part. Which Edge btw - old propieritary or new, chromium based?
Any third-party disk or network monitoring tools active?
Does windows task manager show excessive network or disk usage?
Check HDD/SSD?
Any related events in event viewer?

jwillin

jwillin @donq

@donq Sorry just getting to this. (But, topic is still relevant for many users) Edge is Chromium based. No additional tools. My temp fix is running a .bat file with powercfg flags to turn back on CPU idle for both AC and Battery profiles. Running powercfg script after startup of Opera calms it back down. (But have to do this everytime I open Opera, Opera beta, Opera dev) It is related to CPU idle being disabled. There must be something in the Opera code that doesn't use the power states of cpu correctly and attempts to run at maximum frequency with no load or to decrease latency or ... something... maybe missed "power target window" for CPU return to Idle power state. Or, possibly Opera tries to conform to Windows 10 new turbo-ing modes and balanced profiles. It is happening with other apps and also newer laptops unfortunately. Sorry for all the tech speak but hopefully an Opera Developer could chime in.

donq

donq @jwillin

@jwillin
Have you tried to disable (or enable, if it is disabled) Opera battery saver? On my old W7 laptop disabling it made Opera snappier (no excessive CPU usage was detected in either case); other PC-s are desktops and no battery saver experience there.

jwillin

jwillin @donq

@donq Yes, of course. It makes no difference. This issue is caused by other apps as well in addition to Opera. Opera is just the one I use every day so it is very annoying. And, it is the first app where I noticed it happening.