WMI Provider Host service using 20% of CPU constantly

[Hokie]

I have a 4 or 5 year old HP Envy laptop. I am running Windows 10. A service called WMI Provider Host is consuming 20% of the CPU which cause the cooling fan all the time. I have run Avast! AV and Malwarebytes scans with no luck. I have also followed on line guides on this issue that tell you to run Windows Event Viewer to identify the process ID of the service that show an error under WMI-activity and those processes are not even running when I open Task Manager.

I have also tried removing things what start with Windows but can seem to fix this issue.

[msongs]

1. their website offers a solution. lots of other ideas in google search

https://wmiproviderhost.com/

or

https://www.drivereasy.com/knowledge/wmi-provider-host-high-cpu-usage-on-windows-10-solved/

[Hokie]

2. Thanks! I may have found it.

I had tried most of the things in the links so I started disabling things in the startup file. I began removing things I didn't think I needed. One of the services was "IgfxTray". I found this description:

igfxTray.exe is a software component developed by Intel Corporation for the module Intel Common User Interface. This process is present on your computer as part of Graphics Media Accelerator Driver which is shipped along with NVIDIA graphics cards and Windows drivers for Intel. It displays an icon in your taskbar notification tray through which any user can access Intel Graphics configuration.

I disabled it from starting using CCLeaner and the WMI Provider Host disappeared completely from Task Manager. I have never used it so I don't think I need it.

[Hokie]

4. Unfortunately it wasn't the fix

After I restarted this morning the problem was back. I tried doing the Driver Easy procedure using msconfig with a safe boot and Windows Power Shell. So far that is working even though the Maintenance Diagnostic routine didn't seem to find anything wrong. We shall see if that was a permanent fix.

[earthshine]

3. Here's an article about it ...

https://www.howtogeek.com/332838/what-is-the-wmi-provider-host-wmiprvse.exe-and-why-is-it-using-so-much-cpu/

I didn't read it. Good luck!

[Hokie]

5. I may have fixed this problem

None of these fixes really worked. I could never find the offending process ID when I looked in Task Manager. I finally tried disabling almost every non-Windows process in the Startup tab in task manager. That seemed to work. I have slowly been enabling the services one at a time and have not found the offending program yet. I wait several reboots before enabling the next service.

I have a hunch that the culprit might be igfxTray which is a user interface for the Intel graphics accelerator module. I will enable that one next.

One issue is that this PC is out of the support Window for HP since it is at least three years old. I removed all the HP support stuff because it was no longer downloading any driver or firmware updates anyway. I am wondering if updates on Windows 10 might introduce some incompatibilities with older drivers.

[hauweg]

6. If it's still an issue

This might help: Microsoft's How to troubleshoot High CPU Usage by WMI Components
https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/askperf/2014/08/12/wmi-how-to-troubleshoot-high-cpu-usage-by-wmi-components/