When we use a personal computer, we want it to be protected at all times from any external situation and at the same time offer us the best possible performance. With the use of this new security software, users of this operating system feel more secure. But we would like to know how to limit CPU usage to Windows Defender in Windows 10.
Learn how to limit CPU usage to Windows Defender in Windows 10 and boost your system’s performance. Follow these effective methods to optimize your PC.
Windows Defender uses very little of the resources that our CPU has , we also have to know that the way it runs is always in the background.
It performs analysis of all files or programs that are downloaded by browsers. And at all times it is monitoring the system in search of an anomalous situation to act.
But it is possible that depending on the capacity of our CPU , we should put a limit on the antivirus and thus have more resources.
This is possible to do and it is also very simple, as well as limiting the upload bandwidth of OneDrive in Windows 10. And then we are going to give you the simple steps that will allow you to perform this operation.
How to limit CPU usage to Windows Defender in Windows 10.
Limiting the CPU usage of Windows Defender on Windows 10 can be achieved through a few steps. Here’s a tabular guide to help you through the process:
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1. Open Local Group Policy Editor | Press Win + R, type gpedit.msc, and press Enter. |
| 2. Navigate to Windows Defender Antivirus Settings | Go to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Defender Antivirus. |
| 3. Find and Edit CPU Usage Limit | Look for Specify the maximum percentage of CPU utilization during a scan and double-click on it. |
| 4. Enable and Set CPU Usage Limit | Select Enabled. Then, under Options, set the desired percentage of CPU usage. |
| 5. Apply and OK | Click Apply, then OK to save the changes. |
| 6. Restart Your Computer | Restart your computer to apply these settings. |
Note: Local Group Policy Editor is not available in Windows 10 Home Edition. In that case, you may need to use third-party software or make registry changes, which should be done cautiously as it can affect system stability.
Apparently Microsoft anticipated that Windows Defender could make use of a large part of our CPU resources. And therefore it has incorporated a method that allows us to limit it to the use that we want. It is very easy to do, you just have to follow the instructions that we are going to teach you shortly and know how to do it yourself.
For this, we are going to make use of PowerShell, the command console that has replaced the command prompt console in Windows 10. Of course, the changes that we are going to make will require that we have administrator rights. And in this way we can establish what percentage of the CPU we can allow to use.
Steps to limit CPU usage to Windows Defender in Windows 10
Natively or by default, the percentage of power that Windows Defender uses from our CPU is a maximum of 50%. And this percentage is the one that we are going to limit in the way that we see fit. So as a first step, we go to the PowerShell application and open the console with administrator permissions .
Now we must copy or paste the following command that we are going to show, of course the number that appears at the end, you can change it as you wish.
Here we have placed 50, but it may be lower as we have already been explaining to you. Also if you wish you can increase this value above 50 , but never for any reason you can take it to 0.
Therefore the command that you are going to use is the following Set-MpPreference -ScanAvgCPULoadFactor 50. Now, depending on the value you add as allowed by Windows Defender, this will have an impact on CPU usage. But it will also impact the time it takes for the application to scan the system.
This is something that you should be clear about, before making any major changes in this area of the system. If you limit Windows Defender below 50% you will have more resources from the CPU , but the scan times will be longer. On the other hand, if the limit is above 50% then Windows Defender will work faster, but it will use more CPU resources.
Another point that you must be clear about, that at no time will you lose Windows Defender protection, you will only vary its execution time on the system. This is extremely important, since being without antivirus is not recommended, nor is it a viable alternative.
In this way we have shown you how to use a new tool such as PowerShell in this version of Windows. And the use of commands for singles that will allow you to limit the CPU usage to Windows Defender in Windows 10.
