Though the operating systems take utmost care to relatively distribute the CPU and maintain a harmony among applications, there are certain tools that force the machine to allot them the processor on a priority basis, thus compromising on other heavier tasks. Anti-virus tools are often the culprit in such scenarios. Usually, they eat up a huge portion of CPU, and the like; for example Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) is set to consume 50% of the CPU by default. So, during a security scan, if you are running some other heavy tasks that require more attention, then you can limit the CPU consumption of MSE. Here’s how. Step 1: Launch MSE. It should be sitting in the system tray.
Step 2: Navigate to the Settings tab, select Scheduled scan from the left pane, select a value (ranging from 10% to 100% on a scale of 10%) from the drop down to Limit CPU usage during scan to and then click on Save changes.
Exit the interface. Next time you run a scan you will be able to note the difference.
