Teams Meetings appear to take a lot of CPU (avg 32%)
When running a Teams Meeting on my Surface Pro i7 (2017), my screen-sharing, video meeting used about 30-32% of my CPU constantly. This seems different than Skype for Business. My battery life went from 100% to 35% over the 2 hour meeting.

Thank you for your reports. We are aware of recent performance issues with Microsoft Teams meetings, especially on laptops and when using external monitors. The team is working to resolve these issues.
In the meantime, please find troubleshooting information here: https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/troubleshoot/known-issues/teams-slow-video-meetings-laptops-4k.
21 comments
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Theodor commented
I’m using a Thinkpad, brand new, and I experience the same thing. Teams takes over the computer and making it unusable. Everything lags. I thought it was the computer, but reading through this thread makes it look like Teams might be to blame. I have similar experiences with Zoom and Slack as well when sharing the screen, but Teams is much worse than the others.
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Patrice commented
Hello,
I definitely don't think it's just related to team. With a Surface Pro 7 (and previously a 4 and a 5) all the remote sharing tools I tried have the same issue and make the machine almost unusable because of its slowness. It's a real pain and a real reason to chose another machine.
Thank to MS to fix it ASAP ! -
Andy commented
15" Surface Book 2 i7 w/ GTX 1060. Running Windows 10 1909 (latest my org supports). I've had the computer rebuilt (reimaged) twice to no avail. I've updated to the latest Surface Book 2 drivers, and have flashed the Surface Dock firmware to the latest rev multiple times over the last two years. My home ISP is fiber and delivers 100 Mbps down and 10 Mbps up, and I connect via WiFi. At my organization i have gigabit ethernet.
Regardless of whether I'm using the built-in screen of the Surface, or while connected to my external monitor, Teams performance is intolerable. The integrated GPU (not the discrete GTX 1060) will become nearly entirely consumed. My Teams video lags and my computer, in general, becomes unresponsive. Changing between windows while this is occurring is dreadfully slow, and forget about sharing my screen, that's a no-go. My colleagues use the background blurring effect, but whenever I try to use it things go south quickly. Recently I found that fitting attendees videos to frame, as opposed to letting Teams actively crop them, helped ever so slightly. But even so, general performance during Teams videos is horrible.
I'm the only one on my team with a Microsoft Surface. I'm also the only one on my team experiencing this issue with Teams. The rest of my organization primarilly uses Dell Latitude and Optiplex comptuers. They do not have these problems.
As an aside, I have similar performance issues when using Zoom, while my colleagues do not. I have my suspicions that the Surface Book 2 simply has a toxic brew of tech that is causing my video conference related issues. I manage IT at my organization, and I will not be getting another Surface, nor will I recommend them. It's astonishing to me that MS would not be able to remedy these issues for the two years I've had the device, and given the current pandemic-driven remote work world we're living in this is more important than ever.
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Chahine Mansour commented
any update regarding high CPU when using Teams?. we are facing this on lenovo thinkpad
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Bhavin Gangar commented
it seems so counterintuitive that other company devices work fine with teams and Surface struggles .. but that is exactly what i have been experiencing .. extremely unresponsive UI when the video calls are on
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Anonymous commented
Teams is so laggy to the point it almost doesn't function as a messaging app on a late 2015 iMac 4770k, 32GB ram, NVME SSD. This should be #1 priority.
This seems to be a well documented issue caused by CPU usage spikes. Typing lags constantly in teams, perhaps once every 5 to 10 seconds, regardless of background CPU usage. I'll be typing a message and hit enter to post it, and start typing another one only to find the start of my next sentence has been included in the first message because Teams has lagged. I've checked activity monitor and can see noticeable spikes caused by the 'Microsoft Teams Helper' process.
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Ana commented
Vote here for the same issue - here we have more chance:
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Ana commented
I have a problem with the high memory usage of Teams - up to 1 GB only for chat.
This is insane, my computer is lagging, and I need to work! Reduce it please.
My laptop:
Intel Core i5
8 GB RAM, x64 -
Anonymous commented
Video meetings is disaster.
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Michael commented
Definite MEMORY LEAK.
Running Teams on Win 10 1909, with a new i7 laptop with 12GB RAM and 500GB SSD. When I do a video call with my webcam turned on, Teams will gradually consume all memory and crash (takes from 5 to 15 minutes). This happens every time - not intermittent. And, this happens with the client as well as browser.
Zoom and WebEx work flawlessly.
Microsoft, clean up your product! Try a native development platform.
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Brian commented
Yes, video meetings exacerbate it (I've seen it consuming nearly 3GB after an hour) but just participating in a text chat can push it over 1GB pretty quickly, with it slowly growing higher over time.
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Anonymous commented
When using Microsoft Teams on the app with a Microsoft Surface Pro - the use of teams kills the processor speed so you cannot do anything else. If you turn video off speed increases. This is with a very good broadband connection.
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Andrey Khomyakov commented
32%? What kind of beast of a machine do you have. Mine is fully maxing out my MacBook Air 2018 version. Attached is a screenshot of the CPU utilization in a meeting with 3 participants including myself all with cameras turned on
Also, there is a duplicate report of this: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/33457384-teams-meetings-appear-to-take-a-lot-of-cpu-avg-32 -
Andrey Khomyakov commented
32%? What kind of beast of a machine do you have. Mine is fully maxing out my MacBook Air 2018 version. Attached is a screenshot of the CPU utilization in a meeting with 3 participants including myself all with cameras turned on
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Anonymous commented
Running version 1.3.00.13565 (64 bit) on an i7 laptop with 8GB RAM.
Multiple video streams runs CPU to 100% and get frequent warnings about memory usage and closing Teams.
- Need to optimize video or give option to reduce quality
- Need to reduce memory footprint of application -
Matt Kline commented
Seeing this same issue with my system especially with multiple participant videos.
My Laptop Specs:
CPU: Intel Core I5 1.9GHz
RAM 8GB
Disk: 256GB SSDWindows 10 1809
Build Version: 17763.1282Teams Version: 1.3.00.13565
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David commented
I have constant problems with high memory usage with Teams. This is especially true when having video calls with multiple people. My entire PC slows down, other apps become unresponsive. I often cannot unmute myself in a call because Teams is so slow to show the toolbar. Often Teams crashes and restarts, presumably because it has run out of memory.
I compare this to Zoom where I have calls with more people, all showing video, and there are no problems at all. Zoom is never sluggish, never crashes, and never gives problems no matter how large the meeting is. This goes to show that it is not a problem with my PC, but rather with the Teams memory consumption model.
I really hope that this is resolved, because I want to prefer Teams to Zoom, but it's not easy right now...
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Mr. Smile commented
Teams Desktop CPU and Memory leak, especially when today teams can display 3x3 participant videos.
My laptop specifications:
CPU: i7 Kaby Lake 2.7GHz
RAM: 8GB
Disk: 500GB SSD -
UC Andi commented
Same issue here. During a meeting there are two processes which are consuming 15% CPU each. Looks like one is effected by incoming video and one by showing own video preview. when I minimize video windows, CPU load goes down.
Verified that this is an effect at all my colleagues. -
Anonymous commented
I have the same issue on my MacBook Pro. CPU runs high when video is on and then the battery starts to drain. Pretty much makes it impossible to use when not in the office.