High CPU Usage from large game downloads?

[Combomambo69]

Hi all,

Just built my first PC last month and have been playing/downloading small games up until today when I decided to give ESO a try.

However as soon as it started downloading, my mouse and system started bugging out and becoming sporadic. I immediately pulled up task manager and MSI afterburner and saw that my CPU was running in between 70-100%. According to Afterburner, it was only the first 2 cores, the other 6 were operating below 30%.

Temperatures remained steady around 55degC.

Any idea why my system is behaving this way?

CPU: Core i7 9700K
SSD: Samsung 860 EVO Plus

[_I_]

its normal
steam downloads compressed files which need to be decompressed and moved from download/temp to the install locations

you cant just watch core usage, windows does a good job at spreading out cores loads across cores

[Combomambo69]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't encountered this before. Good to know it is normal behavior.

[plat]

Sometimes, one's antivirus starts scanning the downloads en route. You could use Task Manager to locate the real culprit/s. For example, Defender does this a lot.

[rezo]

Steam utilises your CPU to decompress and move ur downloads. In theory your download speed could be 'bottlenecked' in extreme speeds by your cpu but this is only if you have a ridiculous internet connection which is almost directly connected to a steam server.

Linus Tech Tips did a review on the new Ryzen 5900x and he was able to utilise 100% of the cpu to download GTA an RDR2 at around 700 MB/s... yes MB not Mb/s.

Otherwise theres no issue at all really. It would make less sense if it didnt use your cpu or ssd at all.

[_I_]

there is a command to do all the dotnet updates at once instead of waiting for idle and doing them in the background
winkey+r
C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v4.0.30319/ngen.exe executequeueditems
*check the path, it may be slightly different