Extreme Battery and CPU Usage with Parallels

[Bandabi]

Hello, I've noticed extreme CPU and battery strain when Parallels is running. In Parallels Windows, I was only using a simple text editing program and no games or other high-performance applications. Despite this, my M2 MacBook Air gets very hot, and the battery drains incredibly fast, about 1% every 2-3 minutes. Please see the screenshots. The CPU load is 396%. Is this normal? If not, is it possible to fix it?

 

[SamS4]

This problem may come from Spotlight on the Mac indexing everything on the Virtual Machine for search purposes. I always put the Parallels folder in the list of folders to not be indexed by Spotlight.

 

[DirkM14]

Have you checked with the windows task manager if there's any process using significant cpu?
I've exactly the same issue with parallels using around 400% cpu on macOS, while the windows task manager lists the idle task at 98%, but still shows around 50% cpu usage.

 

[DirkM14]

This problem may come from Spotlight on the Mac indexing everything on the Virtual Machine for search purposes. I always put the Parallels folder in the list of folders to not be indexed by Spotlight.
View attachment 23707

I think that is very unlikely.
Inidicating the `Parallels` folder would at most cause a Sportlight process under Mac OS to consume CPU time. But not the Windows VM process.

 

[Bandabi]

This problem may come from Spotlight on the Mac indexing everything on the Virtual Machine for search purposes. I always put the Parallels folder in the list of folders to not be indexed by Spotlight.
View attachment 23707

Thank you for your answer. I did the setting, but it does not change.

 

[Bandabi]

Have you checked with the windows task manager if there's any process using significant cpu?
I've exactly the same issue with parallels using around 400% cpu on macOS, while the windows task manager lists the idle task at 98%, but still shows around 50% cpu usage.

Thank you for your answer. I checked Task manager on Windows. There was no process which uses much of CPU.

 

[DirkM14]

Updating Windows to Windows 11 24H2 solved the problem for me. (See https://forum.parallels.com/threads/update-windows-to-24h2-on-arm.364414/)

 

[ToddS5]

This just started for me recently. Don't remember any changes other than installing the latest parallels update and tools. Laptop has never been this hot and the battery lasts about an hour and half. It used to last all day running two windows 11 VMs. The drop down never updates to show what's using resources.

 

[AlfredoS1]

Anyone have an update on this one? I have the same issue. Up until recently I would normally get anywhere between 5 - 8 hours of battery life on my MacBook Pro M3. Now my laptop is very hot and battery drains in about 1.5 hours. Very strange behavior.

 

[DharmendraL]

Updating Windows to Windows 11 24H2 solved the problem for me. (See https://forum.parallels.com/threads/update-windows-to-24h2-on-arm.364414/)

This worked for me too. On battery for 3.5 hours now and batt still at 97%.