audiodg.exe – The common CPU hog

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December 28th, 2008

Just noticed that my laptop CPU fan is turning on way too often, and the CPU usage is  never below 30% (which is a lot, especially if running on a mobile machine). The culprit is “audiodg.exe” – a Windows native process in charge for sound in Windows. Killing it is no option, since it will also kill any sound output/input as well.

The most common cause of this benign process becoming a CPU slurper is “Audio enhancements”. In the Sound module (inside Control Panel), there should be a checkbox to “Disable all audio enhancements” for Sound output devices (such as “bass boost” or similar) and Sound input devices (such as microphone echo cancellation)… Check those boxes and confirm with OK, and the CPU usage should drop dramatically.

Although some enhancements do work properly, they are surely not designed with any humble thoughts on CPU cycle usage. It’s a shame, really. One thing though: “Microphone boost” is not officially an audio enhancement and does not cause these kinds of problems. (Which is very fortunate, since the default microphone amplifying level is pathetic)

Joy to the world “So… I heard Vista sucks…”