Stop Monitor.exe Hogging CPU

I recently noticed that my CPU fan on my Acer Aspire 5002 WLMi notebook was running at full speed much more than it normally should and the system itself was running more slowly than usual. When I opened task manager I was finding a process called Monitor.exe was hogging anything up to 99% of the CPU. I terminated the process and that solved everything – usually until I rebooted.

But what to stop this happening again?

It turns out that monitor.exe was related to Acer eRecovery – a tool that helps recover your laptop from a major crash. However after a bit of googling I found out that it needs the D: partition that comes with the laptop (apparently it needs to be in FAT32 as well, but I don’t think this is true because mine had been NTFS for months and I hadn’t noticed any problems).

The problem seemingly arises because I recently reformatted the D partition into a few ext3 and other partitions for installing Linux (Ubuntu to be precise). Since Windows can’t read Linux filesystems, eRecovery can no longer find the D: partition which it, for some reason, seems to need.

Simple solution? Well I disabled Monitor.exe using Start -> Run -> msconfig and disabling Monitor.exe, which was listed at the bottom of the list under the Startup tab.

Author: nerd.

An experienced IT professional, I used to run a number of small websites and spend a lot of time tinkering with my sites or my PC - back when I had free time.

29 thoughts on “Stop Monitor.exe Hogging CPU”

  1. wow, thanks, i just had the same problem on a friends acer, i installed ubuntu and sure enough… however i had to delete Monitor.exe from program files to get it to not load on boot

    Rob

  2. Thank you for this explanation. Yeah, pretty boneheaded of Acer to bundle a utility that makes the laptop glacially slow in Windows if you set up the computer as dual boot. Oh well, may cause folks to spend more time in their linux install 🙂

    I have an Acer 3003lci budget machine myself and was wondering what Monitor.exe was. It definitely ground the system to a halt. Renaming the eRecovery folder to eRecovery_disabled appears to work as well.

  4. I can’t believe I found the solution to my problem this quickly! Yes, I installed Ubuntu on my Acer Travelmate C310, yes it is dual boot, yes the ext3 partitions are at the end, yes my CPU was maxxing out at 99%, and yes, how bad (or arrogant) is the software design that doesn’t acknoledge a user’s right to build their machine the way they want. Sorry Acer, no prizes for this one. To the posters, thanks for the answer.

  5. Hi,

    I had a problem with this Monitor.exe program, but I’ve got a compaq, not an acer. Should I still disable it??

    Thanks

  7. yeah, I too had the same issue. I noticed that after I used the 2nd partition for Ubuntu, The laptop was getting hot, the fan was running all the time, and the CPU was at 100%. I looked at the task manager, and saw that Monitor.exe was using all the CPU!. I went to msconfig and removed it from the startup list. now my laptop is all happy and cool again…!

  8. I have the same problem and I went to msconfig but I couldn’t find monitor.exe anywhere. It’s showing up in my processes and slowing my computer, but I can’t find it. Anyone have any ideas?

  9. i have the same problem, plus i can’t install some softwares, i can find it in system32 folder but not in msconfig, what should i do? can i completely delete it?

  11. I have had this problem for a while and couldn’t figure out how to disable Monitor.exe. Thanks so much for posting the solution.

  12. Hello, I do have a acer 3000 aspire notebook and like to install linux ubuntu 7.10, still not sure about wlan device broadcom as I heared that there are some difficulties about it. Any ideas as to bypass and overcome those hurdles. Thx for helpful hints

  13. Hi all,

    I am still having this problem wiht my siemens labtop wiht vista so someone can helppppp.

  14. To stop Monitor exe. from turning back on double click on (My Computer) then click on (Control Panel) then (Folder Options) select (Offline Files) it will have three boxes on the left uncheck the top box that says (Enable Offline Files) done.

  15. Microsoft Windows also has a file called Monitor.exe that it uses to monitor hardware for bottlenecks, (found because I recently wondered what Monitor.exe was and went searching for answers). The unfortunate thing it that it is a required operating system file, though not required to run, if it is deleted or disabled it can adversely affect your operating system. For the other file related to Acer’s eRecovery, these programs are designed to store a system image of the system on another partition. Image files are actually required to be stored on a separate, and yes, FAT32 partition by the software to ensure they aren’t corrupted by daily usage of the primary partition. The default for these systems is a D: partition and the software is coded to look for this partition. Arrogant? possibly, but where the hell else are they going to store it, since most image files are too big to store on a floppy and are unable to be stored on a CD due to the dynamic nature of recovery systems these days.

  16. Thanks for the info Steve. If I’m honest I’d rather Acer had given me a clean copy of Windows rather than f**k about with their own proprietary apps. I don’t particularly want backup stuff running all the time – especially not if it means I need a separate partition formatted for Windows. If they’re going to put non-standard software on Windows they should at least warn you and tell you how to turn it off.

  17. I’ve had this problem for months with my acer. really appreciate you posting the fix for it.

    Thanks!

  18. Just a note about dual booting – I had C: AND D: drives AND other partitions for Linux… But I encountered this problem when I removed drive D: to give more space to my Drive C: When I installed linux – I asked the partition program to use empty space 0 OR I shrunk drive D: to give me enough space… My point in saying this is so many other posters seemed to imply that dual booting would make this problem with monitor.exe – but that aint necessarily so…

  19. Thanks guys – I just did a factory restore on a Acer laptop and tried to remove the D partition in order to have the C drive with the full disk space. After the restore I converted the two partitions over to NTFS and mounted the volume that would have been D as a directory on the C drive (only becuase I couldnt find a way to extend the boot partition to take up the unallocated space – if anyone knows a way to do that I’d appreciate a reply.) Then I got plagued by monitor.exe hogging cpu and every time any used tries to log out eRecovery process would prevent the shutdown unless manually stopped so this problem is definitely related to not having a D drive or rather not having a ‘proper’ D drive as the CD/DVD-rom isnt good enough.

  20. Thanks for the research. I’ve always just killed Monitor.exe. Just to help pair you with Google searches, this was a problem for me on an Acer TravelMate 4200 running Windows XP, and started occurring after replacing second partition with an Ubuntu partition (though any non-Windows FS would likely screw it up).

  21. I too began having the monitor.exe and fan symptoms. It all started after installing my new LG monitor which comes with a program called forteManager, a utility that enables you to make monitor adjustments using the PC rather than the monitor’s external manual controls. Turned out forteManager was the culprit. As soon as I uninstalled it the problems disappeared.

  22. 1 – click the start button
    2 – click Run
    3 – type msconfig and hit enter
    4 – go to the last tab (startup)
    5 – uncheck the box that says monitor
    6 – restart

    Problem solved

  23. sorry i tried to follow ur simple solution,but still i cant install my 3d max software.please advise me if any solution.please.thanks

  24. i have a different problem!!
    i have toshiba satellite and this (monitor.exe) made a serious problem to me
    all black colors have changed to red one !!
    when booting,dos window changed to red too
    i’v installed a new windows ,nothing changed
    i’v reset the bios by unpluging the battery for a while ,then nothing happend
    after 10 minute,it works i dont know y
    i’v turned off the laptop and i thought it was working propably,
    on the next reboot,i have the same problem
    ANY ONE HAVE AN EXPLANATION FOR THIS TROUBLE!!!! PLEASE

    NOTE:I HAVE ANOTHER MONITOR CONNECTED TO THE LAPTOP THROUGH THE SERIAL PORT (nothing appeare thier ,it is totally good) just the laptop monitor!!!

  25. Have the same problem on Acer TravelMate 4100, even though this grandaddy is running smooth its keyboard response started to be unbelievably slow and D drive disappeared, long story, but I found after OS reinstall that monitor.exe could be the cause of my all day massacre. But I dont see Monitor in the last tab in msconfig, any help? Thanks

  28. The good thing is for my analysis, it averaged out weekday vs weekend usage – therefore it shouldn’t affect things, but good to learn they do proration. For most people this shouldn’t be any material issue though since their usage patterns likely could be the same any particuliar day in the month. Weather to one side, but you can’t really control to the. Rana Feehery

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