Turn on FxSound, no music is playing, standby state, CPU and GPU power consumption increase by 4 watts each

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1

Turn on FxSound, no music is playing, standby state, CPU and GPU power consumption increase by 4 watts each.

FxSound v1.1.20.0
Notebook, Windows 11 23H2
AMD 7840HS CPU with Radeon 780M Graphics
AMD Software Adrenalin Edition 23.11.1

The top half of the screenshot shows the power consumption when FxSound is turned on, and the bottom half is the power consumption when FxSound is turned off.

Strip1
Strip12571×2457 155 KB

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2

H-mm, top screenshot with running microsoft edge, bottom without ms edge - why?

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It’s not related to the EDGE browser, I just temporarily closed it. Turning EDGE on or off has no effect on the results. However, after turning off FxSound in the bottom right corner of the taskbar, the power consumption significantly decreases. I have tested it multiple times and confirmed this.

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5

Ok, please make screenshots with running ms edge, aida64 & task manager on the front of your desktop with fxsound is on and off mode, because i’m can’t confirm this.

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7

No need for more screenshots, you can confirm this issue with AIDA64 on your computer, turn off FxSound you can see a decrease in power consumption.
other people have also reported high power consumption issues

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8

No, i can’t view power consumption.

image

Where? Why you start another theme about this?

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Hi @JDF2008,
Apologies for the delay in my reply; I was, quite simply, asleep.
I pinned my standard troubleshooting list to the top of the forum, it would be helpful if you could go through that first to perform some basic tweaking, e.g. installing the latest version, disabling Exclusive Mode, and the likes.

True.
Here’s a compilation of the threads on this topic, in chronological order:

  1. Report by user @Aromato
  2. Report by user @Audiofile
  3. Reports by users @cracky, @me_lon, @Lspeed, @romix
  4. Report by user @Pulsar

That being said, @bvijay recently addressed the CPU/RAM use issue in v1.1.19.0:

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There was also a report of increased laptop battery drain by user @aaddaas.
Some advice from similar threads:

  1. Disable all unneeded devices including hidden ones in Windows Sound Settings;
  2. Change the Power settings to make the computer/display stay on/awake longer;
  3. Check if your computer supports modern standby power states (S0 low-power idle) by running this command:

powercfg /a

11

You can download HWiNFO to check power consumption, or update AIDA64 to version 7.00.6700

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Thank you for your reply. I have checked and my computer supports modern standby S0 low-power mode.
Essentially, this is a bug and I hope it can be fixed.
You can use AIDA64 on the Win11 23H2 system to verify this issue.

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13

Ok.
Thank you for reporting this behavior.
I’ve notified @bvijay.

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14

HWINFO also shows voltage only. Screenshots from current version of aida64.
The sensor of power consumption depends on computer hardware.
But, if i run any chromium-compatible browser - the minimum voltage of CPU goes up by 0.1-0.3V.

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This thread is an example of professionalism. It now includes due recognition.

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@Antman:
Thanks! :smiling_face:

@JDF2008:
This was @bvijay’s response,

17

Thanks.
I have disabled FxSound startup and waiting for the next version update to fix it.

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Please, don’t count on that.
We know as good as nothing about this bug, and our team is still very small.

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I understand. I can wait.
I will temporarily use Dolby Atmos instead.

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Title: FxSound keeps CPU at high frequency/voltage while enhancement is ON (even without a visualizer window)

Environment: Windows 11 24H2, AMD Ryzen 9 9950X, RTX 3090, FxSound in tray (UI minimized).

Symptom: While music is playing, CPU frequency stays pinned ~80-87% and voltage elevated, though system load is only 3-6%. CPU can’t enter deep idle (C6) — C3 transitions ~10-15k/s.

Measured (Performance Counters, 10-15s averages):

  • FxSound ON, enhancement ON, music: ~31,800 interrupts/sec
  • FxSound ON, enhancement OFF, music: ~18-20k interrupts/sec
  • FxSound EXITED, music still playing: ~17.9k interrupts/sec

The enhancement path alone adds ~20,000-22,000 interrupts/sec during playback — a DPC/interrupt wake-up storm that keeps the CPU at high frequency/voltage. This matches the “high power consumption” and “registry scanning” reports: the processing chain stays attached to the audio endpoint even when enhancement is OFF (full exit is what removes the remaining activity).

Reproduction:

  1. Launch FxSound, minimize to tray.
  2. Enable Audio Enhancement (FX toggle ON).
  3. Play music (no visualizer window needed).
  4. Check Task Manager → Performance → CPU max frequency (80%+) or \Processor Information(_Total)\Interrupts/sec (~30k+).
  5. Toggle FX OFF while music keeps playing → interrupts drop to ~18-20k/s.
  6. Exit FxSound entirely (music still playing) → ~17.9k/s (normal baseline).

Request: When Audio Enhancement is OFF, please fully detach the processing chain (no audio endpoint hooking / no polling) rather than merely bypassing it, so zero extra interrupts are generated. Also investigate why the processing path produces ~20k interrupts/sec — likely aggressive audio-pipeline polling (and registry scans as reported elsewhere). A “low power / background” mode would be very helpful.

Workaround (usable today): Keep FxSound in tray with Audio Enhancement OFF by default; enable it only when needed. This restores CPU to baseline while the app stays resident — no need to fully exit.

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