High System CPU Usage

[FerdiH]

Same problem here.  ( we still have almost 2 years garanty )

Zbook 15u G5 (with Conexant Audio and Radeon Pro WX 3100 grafic card) Windows 10 64bits

Process "System" uses from the startup (no activity) continuously a High CPU but also a "Very high" energy consumption ( color red ) but almost no RAM, no disk, no network. I see also sometimes GPU 0 - 3D activity on/off in this process.
This causes lots of problems with the device, by example multiple times extremely slow or total Freezing of the Radeon grafic card.
The process explorer (MS) shows more than 250.000 hit / activity in the process "system" in less than 60 seconds time.

I tried a lot of things.... but every step was not helping, so i have still no solution!

I Installed all the updates from the HP site using their own software.
I Installed all the updates from MS.
I Disabled and enabled a lot of thing in the device manager.
I Disabled and enabed Flow.exe (  i saw lots of discussions in the forums ) .

I saw also in Windows update: Windows 10 version 2004 still not available for download.
I installed version 2004 using MS "Windows upgrade assistant" with all updates.
I re-installed the original image from HP ( got URL from their helpdesk )
I renew Windows by using the internal option "start over with a clean installation of windows"

I Reinstall All the MS updates again, i see i am back to version 1903 because of the HP Image.

After calling 3 times ( a dossier has been made ), the Helpdesk confirms the laptop must go back.
They want to pick it up but the laptop is not in their database ???
I am still waiting for a email when the pickup will happen.... i called again, but still no action. Strange!!!

I am very happy we didn't renew all the laptops together in our company.
( bad english?: i am sorry )

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HP did send the laptop far away for repair ....  I hope it will help.

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Laptop came back from repair with a new SSD ( ???) and with the old factory image and everything is working fine ...
TILL the laptop is attached to the internet and got all updates from HP and Microsoft.
After entire update of the Windows 10 version 1903 ... High CPU and High Energy Consumption is already back.

Called HP again, i got some tools to check the online Image differences and a get a tool for a full Diagnostic (44MB) to send back to them.
I updated and changed lots of things to get a Device like the Image ....but still no luck.
The Bios differences: 3 settings are not available in the device, but only in the online HP-Image and also 2 settings are in the device but not in the HP-Image... strange !!
HP Tools also detect a problem with the firmware update from Thunderbolt3 (sp102015) .. maybe a false positive because i see version 17.4.78.500, NVM firmware 44.00 ( and Networking driver version "Unknown")
HP got full diagnostics, so i ll wait again.
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I used HPSoftwareSetup.exe version 9.2.3.1 and updatet ALL available Intel Drivers again...

and it looks like this solved everything.... YES

I will start now updating Windows 10 to version 1909

——

System still working as it supposed to do.

SOLVED

I think the real cause of the problem is the windows updates at the first time (After HP factory settings). Probably one of the Intel hardware (driver) tells MS he is something else, so this item got the wrong driver during updating. One of the latest MS updates causes the burning CPU and heavy use of the power. Reinstall the original drivers I have got from the Polish repair guys .. worked. 
After reinstall HP drivers, I saw MS update ones again some drivers ... without problems.

[MaPo31415]

Hi FerdiH,

Sad to say this but... another one bites the dust.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Gaming-Notebooks/High-CPU-Usage-System-ACPI-sys-GPE-L6F-Storm-Omen-15-...

Obviously a firmware issue or botched QA. People were trying to report this on this Community, via Service Requests, on Reddit, I even got in touch with guy that is in contact with Zbook R&D. Zero action, nothing, zero, zilch, nada. 

I recommend you to get a refund if possible. This WON'T get fixed.

[MaPo31415]

I wrote a simple PowerShell script that detects Interrupt Storm caused by torrent of ACPI General Purpose Event L6F, thank to that you can at least put your laptop to sleep and wake it up to fix it temporarilly once it happens. Replace \Processor(x)\ with CPU core that gets hit by it, in my case it's CPU 0.

[int[]]$values = 0,0,0,0,0,0
While($true)
{
    For($i = 0; $i -le 5; $i += 1)
    {
        $counter = Get-Counter "\Processor(0)\DPC Rate"
        $dcprate = $counter.CounterSamples[0].CookedValue
        $values[$i] = $dcprate
        #Write-Host $i = $values[$i]
        sleep 10
    }
    
    $measure = $values | Measure-Object -Minimum
    $minimum = $measure.Minimum
    $timestamp = Get-Date -Format "d.MM.y HH:mm:ss"
    Write-Host "[$timestamp] Minimum DCP Rate is $minimum"

    if($minimum -ge 50)
    {
        [console]::beep(1000,1000)
    }
}

[MaPo31415]

I did my own modifications to the ACPI Tables that basically mask some code from the firmware, but I'm not going to share it, because it poses a serious risk of breaking one's hardware.

From what I gather from my research, this issue is most likely due to poor implementation of Thunderbolt tier-2 General Purpose Events, Thunderbolt Hotplug to be precise. It seems to plague some Skylake/Kabylake boards alike.