Zune Software v.4 is Killing my Processor!

I've been using my Zune 8 and software since January and everything worked fine until today when I upgraded to Zune 4.

When I launch the program, it takes quite some time to load and when it finally shows up, it lags to the point where it's nearly useless. Whenever the application is running, I notice that my CPU usage skyrockets to 100%.

Now my computer isn't amazing or anything (Windows XP, sp2 half a gig of ram and 728 MHz processor) but the software used to work just fine until the upgrade. Music loads ridiculously slowly now, and I don't even want to try loading a video. My albums are missing their cover art too. I tried connecting my device to the software, but it either didn't recognize it over the 15 minutes it was plugged in, or it was responding much too slow. I tried uninstalling/reinstalling the software, and still have the same problem.

I know this is all new and that there are bound to be bugs here and there, but I've never heard of this. Is my computer simply too old to handle the next generation, or is this just another bug? And also, is there a way to roll back to Zune 3.2 (or whatever the previous version was) while I wait for Zune 4 to have the bugs ironed out?

Same here.  Same computer specs, same problem.  (My Zune computer software has been updated, but doesn't recognize my Zune 30 player.)  Also, I've been watching task manager, and  "Microsoft WinUSB Install" and "update.exe" have been running hard for the last 2 hours to no avail.  Will they eventually do something?  

OK I had instinct enough to check here first, especially after that last crash we ALL experienced. I am running an old HP pavilion notebook, running on Win XP. If this software was created for Vista or higher, then I will gladly stay with the current software. Thank you all for your input!  

Well, I guess the solution was to wait 2 hours and then post a complaint on this forum.  Cause it finally worked.  

"Now my computer isn't amazing or anything (Windows XP, sp2 half a gig of ram and 728 MHz processor) but the software used to work just fine until the upgrade. "
To be fair, I think those specs are pretty low by today's standards. I know that my laptop, which has two gigs of ram and a 2Ghz processor, told me that I couldn't keep Zune's display settings at Premium after the Zune 4.0 update.

 CJFS93 wrote:

Now my computer isn't amazing or anything (Windows XP, sp2 half a gig of ram and 728 MHz processor) but the software used to work just fine until the upgrade. Music loads ridiculously slowly now, and I don't even want to try loading a video.

Sigh.  It's time for a modern computer.  Not much, these days, runs well on a 728 MHz processor.  512mb or RAM is not nearly enough to run Zune 4 at any respectable speed (try iTunes 9 on that configuration...you'll see that it is just as bad or worse.)  Finally, XP?  I guess that's a must...Vista certainly won't run on that configuration and I doubt 7 would run well either.  You can get a pretty decent laptop or desktop for the cost of a Zune HD.

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http://halfbyte.spaces.live.com/

Same here, updated and now with the Zune 4.0 software sitting idle my CPU is constantly at 100%. Graphics are set to basic and I did get a warning that my graphics card does not support any of the premium features.
I also have an older PC: Windows XP SP2, 2.66 Ghz Pentium, 512 MB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000

I love the new backgrounds, layout tweaks, and enhancements but it's not very functional when you CPU is being killed.

 QFoam wrote:

Same here, updated and now with the Zune 4.0 software sitting idle my CPU is constantly at 100%. Graphics are set to basic and I did get a warning that my graphics card does not support any of the premium features.
I also have an older PC: Windows XP SP2, 2.66 Ghz Pentium, 512 MB RAM, ATI Mobility Radeon 9000

I love the new backgrounds, layout tweaks, and enhancements but it's not very functional when you CPU is being killed.

I had the same thing happen 100% CPU for a while, and then it chilled out. I noticed the Zune Encoder popping up a bit in the process list. I'm betting that the new software is going through and doing a bunch of stuff, sifting through and checking your collection, maybe reencoding some stuff.

I'll also mention that I ended up closing the software while it was doing that (before I upgraded my device) and saw better behavior afterwards -- but I don't know if it was just pretty much done, or if closing and reopening the software helped.

Hmm, I'm running and E6850 @3.2Ghz with 8GB of RAM.

Max CPU whilst playing is 4-5% and RAM usage is between 80 & 120MB.

Naturally whilst it's syncing and/or transcoding it skyrockets to 50% CPU, but transcoding is always a high usage candidate.

I'm running Windows 7 on a laptop with 4 gigs of ram and Intel Core Duo @ 2 ghz.  The only thing not-so-great is this laptop doesn't have a decent graphics card (It runs on integrated gfx).  With premium graphics enabled, my laptop heats up like a hot dog grill!  Not kidding when I say I could cook a hot dog underneath my laptop. :)

Lowering screen graphics to the setting above "Basic" helps tremendously & the Software is now very speedy!  So my verdict:  If you're on a laptop that has no dedicated graphics chip, you shouldn't be running Premium graphics.  It puts the graphics workload on the cpu processor, which slows down everything.

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Corey Shuster
2009 Microsoft Zune MVP

My responses come only from personal experience.

 RockinRik wrote:

OK I had instinct enough to check here first, especially after that last crash we ALL experienced. I am running an old HP pavilion notebook, running on Win XP. If this software was created for Vista or higher, then I will gladly stay with the current software. Thank you all for your input!  

I dont think it was made for Vista or higher, it should run fine in XP, cuz im having same problem on mine, and im running Vista Home Premium 64Bit SP1

I am using a Toshiba NB205 with 1Gb ram.  I have tried the basic settings for video, but when I am not playing anything and am just sitting there, the CPU usage is between 70-100%.    I can't seem to figure out why it won't go lower.