Dell.TechHub.Instrumentation.SubAgent and Dell.TechHub.DataManager.SubAgent are consuming the whole system resources

Hi albgen:

Is your Latitude 3520 still under warranty?

What is the version and OS build of your Windows operating system [open a Run dialog box (Windows key + R) and enter winver] and current BIOS version?  To find your current BIOS version open a Run dialog box, enter msinfo32 to open your System Information, and look for the field named "BIOS Version / Date" in the summary.

If you go to Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features does it show that the current SupportAssist v4.8.2 is installed on your system?

The Dell TechHub service is used by SupportAssist to run diagnostic hardware scans.  Does your high CPU and RAM usage disappear if you turn off automatic background hardware scans in your SupportAssist settings at Settings | Scans and Optimizations (see the SupportAssist v4 User Guide <here>) and re-boot your computer?

NOTE: While you are testing please do not run a manual hardware scan from the Home panel of SupportAssist since this will likely trigger your high CPU and RAM usage again.

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FYI, I removed all SupportAssist-related programs from my Inspiron 5584 after my service warranty expired because they were too buggy and consumed too much RAM, CPU and other system resources.  I also found the "system optimization" scans in SupportAssist (Clean Files / Tune Performance / Optimize Network) were too aggressive and had the potential to do more harm than good.  See my 08-Feb-2025 post in ygil's BSOD Issues After Windows Updates for further details on the steps I took to replace the functionality of these buggy programs.

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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.6216 * Firefox v142.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25070.5-1.1.25070.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.6.205-138.0.5346 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0

hi,

i don't think is in warranty.

Versione/data BIOS Dell Inc. 1.41.1, 30/04/2025

have not tried to  turn off automatic background hardware scans...

i don't think is in warranty.

Hi albgen:

If you want to confirm go to https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-us/products and enter your unique Service Tag.  That should redirect you to your Latitude 3520 support page and display the expiry date of your service warranty.

have not tried to  turn off automatic background hardware scans...

FYI, andyksfb96d9 just started a new topic at SupportAssist 40% CPU about high CPU consumption by Dell.TechHub.DataManager.SubAgent.exe on their Inspiron 7506 2-in-1. 

Nirmal Tej Katta also reported in their 20-Aug-2025 topic Support Assistant scan hardware issue that their hardware diagnostic scans would repeatedly fail to run to completion on their Inspiron 14 5410 2-in-1.  Unfortunately, they tried to solve the problem by performing a system rollback using Dell SupportAsssist OS Recovery v5.5.x (which caused even more problems and put their computer into a repair loop) before I could provide any suggestions on how they might fix their SupportAssist problem.

Be sure to post back and let us know if your high CPU and RAM consumption stops after you turn OFF automatic background hardware diagnostic scans in your SupportAssist settings and re-boot your system.  If we can confirm your problem is associated with your SupportAssist hardware scans then we have to consider the possibility that all three of you recently started having problems with your Dell TechHub service because of a connection failure to a backend Dell server that can only be fixed by Dell.  It might not be a coincidence that all three of you live outside North America.

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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.6216 * Firefox v142.0.0 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25070.5-1.1.25070.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.6.205-138.0.5346 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0

Hi there

We are also experiencing this issue with high CPU and RAM usage, killing the process and setting the service to manual rather than automatic is a work around but is not ideal, this is using version 5.5.0, will there be a fix for this going forward?

The laptops are not in warranty and have windows 11 installed

We are also experiencing this issue with high CPU and RAM usage, killing the process and setting the service to manual rather than automatic is a work around but is not ideal, this is using version 5.5.0 ...

Hi P_diddy07:

Could you clarify what Dell software you are referring to?  I removed all SupportAssist-related software from my Insipron 5584 (they were too buggy and consumed too much CPU and RAM - see my 08-Feb-2025 post in ygil's BSOD Issues After Windows Updates for further details) but AFAIK SupportAssist for Home PCs v4.8.2 is the latest version.  Go to Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features (i.e., not Settings | Apps) to find your current Dell SupportAssist version.

The Task Manager image in OP albgen's original 21-Aug-2025 post <here> shows a severe memory leak (i.e., 6 to 12 GB of RAM consumed) by the Dell.TechHub.Instrumentation.SubAgent and Dell.TechHub.DataManager.SubAgent processes that grows over time after each system restart until it crashes their system.  Are you seeing a similar memory leak, or does your CPU and RAM usage by these executables just seem excessive to you?

Regardless, you might want to try a clean reinstall of SupportAssist on one of your machines to see if this fixes your problem. See the support article Dell SupportAssist for PCs and Tablets Installation Issue for instructions.

Just FYI, the documentation for SupportAssist for Home PCs at https://www.dell.com/support/product-details/en-us/product/dell-supportassist-pcs-tablets/resources/manuals was recently updated in September 2025 for SupportAssist v4.8.x but there is still no mention of any excessive CPU and/or RAM consumption by these Dell TechHub executables in the Known Issues section of the v4.8.x release notes.  As of today I haven't seen any post by a Dell employee in this forum that suggests Dell is working on a bug fix.
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.6332 * Firefox v142.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25070.5-1.1.25070.4 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.8.212-140.0.5364 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0

Hi Imacri

sorry for the delay in responding, i was waiting to find a machine that has this high RAM usage to provide screen shots, the name of the process is Dell.TechHub.DataManager.SubAgent.exe and the Dell.TechHub.Instrumentation.SubAgent.exe

The screenshots below show the increase over a couple of hour period:

The screenshots below show the increase over a couple of hour period:

Hi P_diddy07:

If you run a manual hardware scan from the Home panel of SupportAssist does this trigger the high CPU usage by Dell.TechHub.Instrumentation.SubAgent.exe and Dell.TechHub.DataManager.SubAgent.exe, and does that RAM usage eventually drop once the hardware scan has run to completion? For now I'm assuming these Dell TechHub processes are associated with SupportAssist diagnostic hardware scans but it will be easier to troubleshoot if you can isolate the cause. 

Your images are just snapshots in time so it's difficult for me to tell if what you observe is just the "normal" high amount of RAM used by these processes when SupportAssist is running a scheduled hardware diagnostic (which always consumes huge amounts of RAM when it run a memory test), or if you have an actual memory leak (i.e., if the RAM is not released after the hardware diagnostic is finished and these processes keep consuming more and more RAM over time) like the OP albgen reported in their original post.

Windows 10 and 11 use several techniques to automatically optimize RAM usage, so short periods of high RAM usage isn't a cause for concern - it's only a problem when a process is constantly hogging so much RAM that your system becomes sluggish and you don't have enough free RAM left to run other programs.  Also keep in mind that you're running Win 11 v22H4 on a computer with 8 GB of RAM - this meets the minimum system requirements listed <here> for running Win 11 but most new Win 11 computers typically ship with 16 GB or more of RAM these days.
 
As I said in my 16-Sep-2025 post <above>, I removed all my SupportAssist-related software from my Inspiron 5584 after my service warranty expired so I can't tell you how much peak RAM and CPU these Dell TechHub processes normally consume.  If you want to keep using SupportAssist I would strongly advise that you turn OFF all scheduled background updates, scans and optimizations in your SupportAssist settings as instructed <here> in the SupportAssist for Home PCs User’s Guide and just run the occasional check for updates and diagnostic hardware scan from the Home tab of SupportAssist as needed.

If you believe you have a true memory leak you could try a clean reinstall of SupportAssist (also see the companion Dell support video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOkgM3JUpHM) as I suggested in my 16-Sep-2025 post <above> to see if this decreases your RAM usage, but you also risk creating additional problems if the reinstall doesn't go as planned (as many users in posting in this Dell forum have unfortunately discovered).
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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.6332 * Firefox v143.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25080.5-1.1.25080.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.3.8.212-140.0.5364 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0

check this out - Dell Instrumentation using 6GB of memory on a new fully up to date xps 14 9440. Disgusting.

Dell Instrumentation using 6GB of memory on a new fully up to date xps 14 9440.

Hi user_2893f0:

What is your Windows operating system [open a Run dialog box (Windows key + R) and enter winver to find the version and OS build number] and current BIOS version (open a Run dialog box, enter msinfo32 to open your System Information, and look for the field named "BIOS Version / Date" in the summary).

What version of Dell SupportAssist v4.x is shown at Control Panel | Programs | Programs and Features?  I removed this program from my Inspiron 5584 (it was too buggy and consumed too much RAM and CPU) but AFAIK the latest version is SupportAssist v4.8.2.  The current SupportAssist for Home PCs Release Notes are ambiguous and only state that the latest version released in July 2025 is v4.8 (i.e., the release notes do not list a specific version number like 4.8.1, 4.8.2, 4.8.3, etc.).

According to my 12-Jan-2024 post in Nani04's Fails SupportAssist, PCI SubSystem failure? the Dell Instrumentation process might have something to do with control of the temperature sensors and fans on the motherboard. AFAIK Dell Instrumentation is a shared service now bundled with a variety of Dell utilities, including Dell Optimizer v6.2.x and various editions of Dell Update v5.5.x (e.g., Dell Command | Update v5.5.0, Dell Update for Windows Universal v5.5.0, etc.) which makes it difficult to isolate the exact Dell utility causing high RAM usage by Dell Instrumentation.

There was a similar problem with high RAM usage by Dell Data Manager and Dell Instrumentation on some systems when SupportAssist v4.6.2 (which I believe was the first SupportAssist v4.x version requiring Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime v8.0.x) was released on 06-Nov-2024, and Dell pushed out a bug fix in v4.6.3 on 24-Dec-2024 - see employ DELL-Brad L's 19-Dec-2024 post in TopRobRoy's Can I stop or remove dell instrumentation. It's hogging all my memory. I'm beginning to wonder now if Dell is pushing out a new version of SupportAssist that introduces a similar bug (or perhaps even includes a bug fix for high RAM usage by Dell processes on certain Dell computer models). I downloaded a fresh copy of SupportAssistInstaller.exe today from https://downloads.dell.com/serviceability/catalog/SupportAssistInstaller.exe and noticed the version number of the offline installer has recently increased to v4.10.1.42635, but I don't know if that means Dell simply made revisions to the v4.8.2 installer or if they're actually pushing out a new version of SupportAssist.

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NOTE: If the service warranty for your new XPS 14 9440 hasn't expired yet you can contact Dell customer support directly by clicking the blue Get Help Now button located in the bottom-right corner of each page of this forum to start a Live Chat and ask them for assistance. After you type in a brief summary of your problem the automated chat bot will ask for your email address and the unique Service Tag of your Dell computer.  Once it confirms you still have a valid service warranty it should connect you to a live customer service rep.

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Dell Inspiron 15 5584 * 64-bit Win 10 Pro v22H2 build 19045.6332 * Firefox v143.0.1 * Microsoft Defender v4.18.25080.5-1.1.25080.5 * Malwarebytes Premium v5.4.0.213-141.0.5376 * Macrium Reflect Free v8.0.7783 * My Dell v2.2.6.0 * Fusion Service 2.2.14.0