Windows 10 High CPU usage by "WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service" & "No Internet Access" when laptop resumes

  • Thread starter Thread starter RobLex
  • Start date Start date
R

RobLex

Hi,

This has been reported a few times here, and I have tried all of the suggested fixes, but so far the issue remains.

I have this on two different laptops for about a year or so, since some Windows update (Fall creator's update?) got applied.

All is fine until the laptop sleeps and resumes, then I get the following symptoms:

  • High CPU usage by "WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service" (and other apparently related office processes)
  • "No Internet Access" reported on the network task bar icon, even though Chrome works, and network is reachable (ping etc. works fine) but yellow warning triangle appears on the tray icon.
  • Edge does not work - just starts with blank screen and then will not close. I followed some advice to remove edge and re-install it - so it's now removed, but unfortunately the "re-install" part of the post doesn't work.
  • Lots of functionality like search function on the start menu stops working. (This is very annoying!)
  • Causes a lot of fan noise and battery runs down quickly as a result of high fan/CPU usage.

So, it's something to do with network access layer for certain Microsoft programs.

What I have tried so far: (from reading other posts):

  • "Networking troubleshooting" option (After a long time, if it doesn't become totally unresponsive, It detects a problem, but offers no solution and suggests network reset, which I tried didn't resolve it.)
  • Uninstalled Edge
  • Turn on/off "auto detect proxy settings"
  • ?Clean start with no additional startup programs or services or virus protection started
  • Disabling all MS Firewall / Defender options
  • Re-installing/updating network drivers - says they are up to date.


All to no avail. The only solution to it seems to be to reboot.

I have the same problem in about the same time period on two laptops, an older Lenovo and a newer PC Specialist laptop.

Some posts suggested the problem might be Chrome, so I tried uninstalling and re-installing chrome, but it did not make any difference. I also tried disabling all of the chrome extensions and plugins.

Not convinced that re-installing windows would resolve it?

This is typically what happens. Sometimes CPU usage from WinHTTP Web proxy Auto-Discovery Service gets to 20 or 30%. It seems that disabling or stopping this service is not an option since lots of things rely on it for whatever reason, even though there is no web proxy in use.




Continue reading...
 
Back
Top