Recent headaches with Windows 7 on multiple T43p units

[ajkula66]

I've loaded and ran W7 Pro 32 on a multitude of T43p units over the past few years, whether they were stock or SATA-modded.

However, I've noticed that lately - maybe over the last two months - the idle temps for the CPU become unreasonably high IMO (70 C or thereabouts) once all the Windows updates have been applied. It makes zero difference whether the CPU itself is PM 760/770/780, or whether the unit was SATA-modded or not. If I pop in a drive with an XP image, the temps drop by 10 degrees, sometimes more.

Normally, it used to be the GPU on these machines that becomes a hotspot...not anymore.

It's NOT the hardware. That much I'm certain of, since I've observed it on five different units at least.

What am I missing? Where is my culprit?

Any insight appreciated.

[dr_st]

This does look unreasonably high.

You are using TPFanControl to measure temperatures, I assume? Is the fan spinning at the same speed in both cases?

Have you verified the PC is really idle with no pesty background tasks?

FWIW, I am not seeing this phenomenon with my X32 which dual boots XP and Win7, but that is quite different hardware.

[rkawakami]

Perhaps look through and/or revert the system to some earlier restore points and see if your temps lower? Also, do all of the systems have the same BIOS and EC versions? <grasping at straws here, but I thought I'd ask anyway>

[Norway Pad]

That reminds me about what I have seen a couple of times, where the process MsMpEng.exe has hogged the CPU resources. A couple of times I know for sure this happened on my Win7 unit after Windows Updates had been applied, that's why it came to mind. But it my cases it was using quite some CPU%, and was quite obvious in the Task Manager, so I think you would have noticed it. Can it still be this process that runs somewhere deep in your backgorund? Apparently related to MSE / Windows Defender, but I have never looked further into it, or taken any actions about it.

[dr_st]

^^^
This is the MSE, and this, apparently uncontrollable, CPU hogging at its whim is why I stopped using the thing altogether.

[ajkula66]

Thanks everyone for the replies...

1) Same BIOS/EC on all.

2) No MSE, I never allow it in.

3) Can try a restore point on a machine with a HDD and see what that gets me, will report back.

[exTPfan]

Did you check the task manager to see what processes are using the cpu. In my experience, MSE will use a lot of cpu occasionally, but not continuously. However I have another program (a scientific wordprocessor) that use 100% cpu on my T42p under win 7 and 1% on everything else (e.g., T601 with win 7, T42p with XP). This may be a bug in Win 7. I had to revert my beloved T42p to XP.