I'll do the same with my ThinkPad (XP based) as soon as possible, & the rest of my installs. Every little bit of increased performance adds up.

Cat

Many "experts" state that there is no empirical data to show some of these tweaks work, but you know even with my old eyes I can notice a marked improvement in performance without a stop watch to time things.

All the tweaks TM mentioned have been discussed somewhere in these Forums. Do some reading and see what you can find.

There's plenty more of tweaking that can be done within the msconfig utility. Such as disabling unneeded services at startup.

Who really needs Adobe/Foxit Reader, Java Updater, backup programs, Google Update & many others loading during this time? Not me. All of things & more slows the loading of the OS at this critical time. As many as practical, I disable.

There is also an option in CCleaner to disable many of these services.

Cat

If I go back to the original issue, I am quite sure restoring windows to the time before updates worked.

However there is another issue now (which was there before as well) and that is Service Host: Local System (Network Restricted) going out of nowhere to 50% cpu usage. Using google and disabling services under it gave me a clear idea what it causes - Superfetch. I couldn't restart or disable it, only restart helped to get cpu use on normal levels. It is most probably some windows 8 bug and disabling superfetch totally isn't a good idea. Has anyone experienced this and perhaps fixed it?

Either your system does not like Win 8 RP, or your installation is corrupt. It is possible the original ISO file download was corrupted. I have not heard of this problem at all.

That's a new one on me, either Superfetch either works (it should work) or it doesn't.

My suggestion would be to start completely over, reading & following the instructions in this thread very carefully.

http://www.forumswindows8.com/instal...-file-6411.htm

These steps must be followed in order to determine your issue. If all goes right, the issue will solve itself. If not, post back here afterwards & let us know.

Cat

My CPU was being used up by "Service Host: Local System" but no "(network restricted) was there? - around 70%
My CPU was also being used up by some HP thing. - around 28%
I have a i7 2.40 GHz quad core processor in a new HP Envy dv6 and the CPU was running at 3.14 GHz.
It said it was at 100% usage.
can someone explain how 3.14 GHz works on a 2.40 GHz processor?

Also if I want to use msconfig in Command Prompt to change the cores do I put 4 or 8 because in Device Manager I see 8 i7 processor images.

And how does all of this fix the random CPU usage Insanity?

Matthew Baird, Welcome to the Forum!

The reason that you see "eight" of your CPU's listed, is because you have a quad core CPU w/4 threads. This is the way that the Device Manager has listed the CPU for ages. Even the Pentium HT models showed twice because there were 2 threads. Enjoy, not everyone has that many listed. It's best to leave this configuration alone.

It could be that your 2.40GHz CPU is showing as 3.14GHz is due to Intel's Turbo Boost. On my MSI notebook, though my i5 is rated at 2.66GHz, Turbo Boost brings it up to 2.91GHz when needed, usually short bursts. Being that you have a larger CPU than I, that amount isn't unreasonable & no cause for concern. This info should be in your computer specs. If not, lookup your specific CPU on the Intel site (Google search the Full CPU model). It should be the 1st one or so, an Intel link. Highly detailed specs are available there.

Probably the reason that it's jumping to 100% is due to HP (I have one too, & am on it now) having a lot of unneeded services launching at startup. Go to the Control Panel, type "System" into the search box, then you'll see several options, choose "View System Resource Usage In Task Manager".

From there, you can see what's consuming your resources. Note that's there's 7 columns, go to the 4th one, "Startup". There is where you can control services that you don't need at the moment that you fire up your computer. You don't need all of that HP media & other garb loading at startup, but you do need some of the items to. Start with items that you know that you don't need at that moment & disable them. There will be shown an option for this, as well as it's impact on System Performance (High, Medium or Low). Any "High" ones that you don't need, should be the first ones disabled.

Reboot & see the difference. Chances are, your CPU usage will drop.

If by chance you use CCleaner, there's also a Startup list there, from which you can do the same, it just won't show the startup impact.

Hopefully my post has been of some help, please let us know how things turns out.

Cat