[WIndows 11 23H2] cpu_percent percpu=True shows realistic CPU load only for one core

[Extiward]

Summary

• OS: Windows 11 Pro 23H2 22631.4317
• Architecture: 64bit
• Psutil version: 6.1.0
• Python version: 3.11.9
• Type: core

Description

When using cpu_percent with percpu=False to display CPU load the value is always much lower than expected, e.g. cpu_percent returns load or single digit percent, while CPU actually is loaded to e.g. 50-70% (when looking at Task Manager). When using percpu=True only one element in the array contains large number (the high load element seems to change from run to run), which roughly corresponds to the full CPU utilization (see output example below). CPU has 12 cores and 24 threads.

Code snippet:

while True:
            cpu_load = psutil.cpu_percent(interval=1, percpu=True)

            print(f"CPU load: {cpu_load}%")
            time.sleep(1)

Example output:
CPU load: [0.0, 0.0, 1.6, 3.1, 0.0, 3.1, 0.0, 4.7, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.6, 0.0, 4.7, 1.6, 0.0, 1.6, 3.1, 3.1, 0.0, 0.0, 3.1, 1.6, 42.4]%
CPU load: [3.1, 3.1, 6.2, 1.6, 0.0, 3.1, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 3.1, 1.6, 41.5]%
CPU load: [0.0, 1.6, 6.2, 6.2, 0.0, 0.0, 1.6, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 3.1, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 70.1]%
CPU load: [4.6, 0.0, 3.1, 4.7, 0.0, 1.6, 1.6, 1.6, 1.6, 1.6, 4.7, 3.1, 0.0, 3.1, 10.9, 3.1, 0.0, 4.7, 3.1, 10.9, 1.6, 0.0, 3.1, 50.0]%
CPU load: [0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 6.3, 0.0, 0.0, 1.6, 3.1, 0.0, 0.0, 3.1, 0.0, 0.0, 3.1, 3.1, 1.6, 1.6, 3.1, 0.0, 3.1, 0.0, 1.6, 0.0, 35.4]%

That can't be correct behavior. Expected result would be to have roughly even load across all cores as seen in the attached screenshot.