Windows 10 messing up CPU affinity, only using 3 cores

[remageppesuig1]

Hello everyone, first time posting here!
I've recently had some problems with my windows install and now its gotten to the point where windwos automatically puts the CPU affinity of almost every program running on my pc to core 0,1,2 while the rest remains almost unused.

So basically in a normal scenario i have the first 3 cores used to max while the rest is at the low 15% (used by the few programs that windows doesn't mess up like opera, task manager, my antivirus and a few other)
I might also add the fact that this problem happens also with windows critical operation programs like "svchost"

I searched on google for a fix but I only found that you can tell windows what cores to use with a command line when starting a specific application, but im sure there has to be a better way. I think its really unrealistic that someone should add a command to a shortcut for almost every single program that a user wants to start.

Someone please help me.

Here are my Specs:
AMD Ryzen 5 5600X 
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti
Corsair Vengeance RGB pro 4x8 3200Mhz 
MB: Asus Rog Strix B550-F
and a few ssd,hdd and one m.2 ssd

If more infos are needed please ask me i'll try to answer the best i can.

[SkilledRebuilds]

I came across this yesterday, while its not a solution, maybe it can be used to diagnose.. or to workaround using the commandline.
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/microsoft-interrupt-affinity-tool/

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

55 minutes ago, remageppesuig1 said:

Hello everyone, first time posting here!
I've recently had some problems with my windows install and now its gotten to the point where windwos automatically puts the CPU affinity of almost every program running on my pc to core 0,1,2 while the rest remains almost unused.

So basically in a normal scenario i have the first 3 cores used to max while the rest is at the low 15% (used by the few programs that windows doesn't mess up like opera, task manager, my antivirus and a few other)
I might also add the fact that this problem happens also with windows critical operation programs like "svchost"

Are those cores being maxed out and its still doing this?  If not, it might just be trying to let the other cores sleep.

 

I know when relatively idle my 5950X seems to only use around three cores too, but when loaded they all fire up.

[remageppesuig1]

25 minutes ago, SkilledRebuilds said:

I came across this yesterday, while its not a solution, maybe it can be used to diagnose.. or to workaround using the commandline.
https://www.techpowerup.com/download/microsoft-interrupt-affinity-tool/

 

If i see it right this is something to change the affinity, I can already to this in windows, the problem here is that every time i reboot the system windows reverets those changes
lets say i start my pc in the morning, most of the programs are set by windows to use only 3 cores, i manually change them all to use all the cores (which actually takes a long while because i have to do this with almost every process). Ofter using the pc and shutting it off, the next day all changes are reverted, meaning that i have to set the affinity manually every day again and again and again.

 

 

3 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Are those cores being maxed out and its still doing this?  If not, it might just be trying to let the other cores sleep.

 

I know when relatively idle my 5950X seems to only use around three cores too, but when loaded they all fire up.

I dont think this is the problem, because even if all cores should go full power they never will because on task manager they are set to only use that 3 cores and windows does that by iteself. 
here is a screenshot to show you what i mean: 


igonore the fact that my windows is in italian, anyway it should be clear what i mean, i just picked a random program (discord in this case) and as you can see windows told it to only use the first 3 cores.

[Alex Atkin UK]

20 minutes ago, remageppesuig1 said:

If i see it right this is something to change the affinity, I can already to this in windows, the problem here is that every time i reboot the system windows reverets those changes
lets say i start my pc in the morning, most of the programs are set by windows to use only 3 cores, i manually change them all to use all the cores (which actually takes a long while because i have to do this with almost every process). Ofter using the pc and shutting it off, the next day all changes are reverted, meaning that i have to set the affinity manually every day again and again and again.

 

 

I dont think this is the problem, because even if all cores should go full power they never will because on task manager they are set to only use that 3 cores and windows does that by iteself. 
here is a screenshot to show you what i mean: 


igonore the fact that my windows is in italian, anyway it should be clear what i mean, i just picked a random program (discord in this case) and as you can see windows told it to only use the first 3 cores.

Indeed you are correct, that's very odd.  Just checked and my 5950X is definitely setting things to all processors as expected.

Have you tried updating the AMD chipset drivers perhaps?

[remageppesuig1]

17 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

Indeed you are correct, that's very odd.  Just checked and my 5950X is definitely setting things to all processors as expected.

Have you tried updating the AMD chipset drivers perhaps?

I actually didn't but thanks! i will try that now.

 

[remageppesuig1]

Okay after intalling the chipset drivers i did a little bit of testing and i have to say that im very cringed of the reason of all this.
So while i was testing i found out that the CPU affinity changes by opening a game/ heavy program like UE4... and the only culprit of this had to be razer cortex as it started togheter with it. (Context: razer software comes with a little tool that optimizes your pc when starting a game, so far it did a splendid job and it was clearing a lot of unnecessary RAM etc.) After deeper digging in the optimization settings of razer cortex i found out that this setting was causing all the trouble. 

This setting leaves the started game/program to use all cores, while it sets everything else to only 3 cores. Making those 3 poor cores work the hardest while the rest lags (e.g screenshare on discord).
 

Apparently this is due a recent update of razer cortex because recently the whole UI changed and so did probably the optimization settings, especially because i didnt have this problem a few months ago and i was still using razer cortex.

Disabling this setting solved the issue so far and since the cores arent messy after starting above said programs i can certainly say this is the cause of it.

Very many thanks to both of you for trying to help me out and luckily a solution was found.