Limit Windows Defender CPU Usage

I have the problem that our Clients use too much CPU during a FullScan. Actually, the usage is limited to 20%, but the setting seems to have no effect. Whether I set it via Configuration Manager or G...

AJP123

Copper Contributor

Jan 15, 2021

mongrel15

Changing the following setting to NO doesn't make any difference for us - "Start a scheduled scan only when the computer is idle” / "“ScanOnlyIfIdle” doesn't make any difference for us.

I tried setting "AvgCPULoadFactor"n in the registry to 1% and it would still hit up to 68%.

Salbert89

Copper Contributor

Apr 13, 2021

AJP123

Hey,

based on the docs article for Set-MpPreference, its not a hard limit, see text below.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/defender/set-mppreference?view=windowsserver2019-ps&viewFallbackFrom=win10-ps

-ScanAvgCPULoadFactor

Specifies the maximum percentage CPU usage for a scan. The acceptable values for this parameter are: integers from 5 through 100, and the value 0, which disables CPU throttling. Windows Defender does not exceed the percentage of CPU usage that you specify. The default value is 50.

Note: This is not a hard limit but rather a guidance for the scanning engine to not exceed this maximum on average.

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Limit Windows Defender CPU Usage

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