[German]The next blog reader with performance problems under Windows 11 24H2 has reached me. The reader set up a system with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU on an ASRock Z890 Pro RS mainboard and installed Windows 11 24H2. Then he ran into massive problems. He has since been able to verify the behavior on a notebook. In addition, there is another reader message reporting unsightly effects of the February 2025 update under Windows 11.
Advertising
A reader report on performance issues
Microsoft Windows 11 24H2 has become a real problem since its release in fall 2024. Numerous bugs and problems are causing users to despair. Rüdiger recently contacted us by email and described his experiences with Windows 11 24H2 in conjunction with new Intel CPUs.
The system environment
Rüdiger has built a new system with an Intel Core Ultra 9 285K CPU on an ASRock Z890 Pro RS mainboard. During commissioning, he noticed that he could only get the system to start Windows 11 24H2 with the latest beta bios (MCU 116).
The error at startup is due to the CPU or the Intel microcode update (MCU) integrated in the bios. The system is equipped with 4x64GB, i.e. 256GB RAM. The MCU 116 from Intel actually addresses problems with such a memory configuration.
The system was installed with the latest ISO from Microsoft and then the February 2025 update was installed.
Massive performance problem
The above problems with the platform prompted the reader to put the system through its paces and test its stability. He noticed that Windows 11 24H2 with the latest Intel CPUs of the Core Ultra 200 series has a new massive performance problem. Rüdiger was able to reproduce the problem with various applications (e.g. the 7zip benchmark but also Prime95).
Advertising
As soon as an application loses focus or is even minimized, it is massively throttled. The application is throttled to such an extent that the CPU even reduces its clock rate. The reader has created three screenshots on the subject.
The screenshot above shows the task manager with minimized 7zip (click image to enlarge).
The screenshot above shows the task manager with 7zip currently in the foreground, but also the phase in which it was running in the background (click image to enlarge).
The screenshot above shows the 7zip benchmark window, in which, according to Rüdiger, you can also see how the performance drops to about half as soon as the application is minimized.
Distribution work load across all cores does not help
When I received the email, I immediately thought of my blog post Windows 11: (P-Core) problems with Intel hybrid CPUs and network drivers, which describes a performance problem. However, the load can be distributed across all cores.
Rüdiger wrote that he had already applied the fix in the above benchmarks, which distributes the load of the application to all CPU cores when running in the background. But it probably doesn't help.
So far, he has been unable to find a solution to this problem other than activating the maximum performance energy-saving plan. The application can then also minimize or call up the full CPU performance in the background.
Some CPUs not affected
Rüdiger wrote to me that the problem does not occur on a system with an AMD Ryzen 9 9950X CPU. The same applies to a system with an Intel Core i9 12900K CPU, where there are no performance problems. Anyone else from the readership with similar observations?
Another driver problem in Windows 11 24H2
The reader notes that he has had another problem on several systems since upgrading to Windows 11 24H2. Various USB sound cards on different systems are put into a power-saving mode. However, it then takes a while to wake up. Therefore, after pausing a video, 10-15 seconds of sound are often not output because the sound card remains silent. This problem did not exist with Windows 11 23H2.
Windows 11: Side effects of the February 2025 update
On February 11, 2025, Microsoft released various security updates for various Windows 11 versions (see Patchday: Windows 10/11 Updates (February 11, 2025)). Thomas B. wrote to me by email that the installation of these security updates appears to tighten the operating system's internal security policies.
He has observed that the Core Isolation and Memory Isolation option in the Control Panel disappears. He also observed unpleasant effects when installing signed drivers.
- The Lenovo BIOS updates (including the latest from January 2025) no longer work because the driver cannot be loaded.
- Some older USB sound drivers cannot be installed. However, if you install the drivers before the update, they run without problems even after the update.
The Lenovo BIOS problem can be solved by removing the update from February 2025 – without this update the drivers are loaded again. Can anyone else confirm this?
Advertising
