The latest Windows 10 patches have not arrived in conditions. The saddest thing is that this seems to have become the custom. On December 8, Microsoft released the KB4592438 patch, which would be the last 2020 update for the operating system. This patch has come with a large number of bugs and problems, bugs that, since Microsoft is now on “vacation”, it will not fix until next year. One of the most annoying is excessive CPU usage , skyrocketing processor usage and causing the PC to run much slower than normal.
Microsoft has not made any statements about this new flaw in Windows 10. The company already said it was going to pause all kinds of updates (both normal Windows 10 and Insider) throughout the Christmas period. This means that the bugs that have been introduced with the KB4592438 patch will not be fixed until next year. Luckily, the community does not rest, and thanks to them we will be able to make our PC work normally again in case we are affected by this problem.
What causes excessive CPU usage in Windows 10
Although Microsoft has not helped investigate this problem, thanks to blogging and networking users such as Reddit, the cause of this problem has been found. Apparently, everything points to an incompatibility problem between the latest Windows 10 patch and the Intel Driver & Software Assistant Tool .
When this combination occurs (generally on Intel computers with iGPUs), the use of the ” DSAService ” process, related to the drivers and the update tool, consumes much more CPU than it should normally consume while running in the background. The CPU consumption of this process can range from 50% to 100%, depending on the user’s processor. And that translates, among other things, into a more than noticeable loss in PC performance, and in FPS drops when gaming.
Temporary solution
Since Microsoft is not bothering to help users solve these problems, and Intel has not made any statements about it, it has had to be the users themselves who have come up with a temporary solution.
If we are affected by this problem and our computer works badly and slowly, we can choose two possible solutions.
The first of these is to completely uninstall the Intel DSA software. By eliminating the process from our PC, the computer should work normally again, without problems. We will lose the typical functions of this software (such as the control of the drivers), but in general terms, the rest of the problems will be solved.
The second of these solutions is the typical one: uninstall the KB4592438 update installed in December 2020. This patch has come with many problems to the operating system, problems that, every time, affect more users. Completely removing this update will allow us to still fix the problem without turning our backs on Intel software.
Either way, we must make sure to pause Windows Update automatic updates after performing these tasks to prevent the update, or driver software, from being automatically reinstalled.
