[Q] HTC One X constant CPU load killing my battery

Now, I've been troubleshooting this issue for >3 months and I've lurked the forums as much as possible. I've looked over threads like the Google Services is Killing My Apps but it doesn't really go beyond the surface of the issue. Now, I'm pretty good with linux/bash and I understand most advanced computing topics but I'm a noob as to the inner workings of droids. At this point I'm hoping that you guys can offer some enlightenment because I don't know what steps to take next. Here's what's going on:

Device: non-root ATT HTC One X
Versions:
Android: 4.1.1
Kernel: 3.4.10

Now, here's the extra tasty bits of info:
CPU usage is always very high. Here's some averages throughout the day,
CPU: ~10% usr: <10% sys: 1% nice: 90% idle: 0%
Load Average: some days it's floating around 2, other days floats around 5. Regardless of load average, the above numbers stay pretty much exactly where they are.


Now, I've uninstalled every app. I've disabled Google Play, Google Play Services, and all other Google Services. This solved the issue except that after ~2 hours, I saw that Google Play and Google Play Books automatically re-enabled and re-installed themselves and the issue's occurring again. Sure, that means that I've sort of narrowed down the cause of this insane cpu usage but that doesn't get me any closer to knowing what to do to fix it. Anybody have any idea as to why google play is abusing my battery?

timmaaa said:

The stats you gave in the middle of your post there aren't very clear, can you please try to elaborate on that? What app are you using to come up with the stats? What kind of battery life are you getting?

Sent from my Evita

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I'm using an SSH app called Terminal IDE. In the bash shell I run the command top to get those stats. It's the same thing as turning on "Show CPU Usage" in settings -> Developer Options -> Advanced -> Show CPU Usage.

Also, to clarify, when my processor is getting abused, it's showing as 10% is coming from user processes, 10% system processes, 90% "nice" processes and usually 0% idle. I've never seen nice processes consume so much cpu lol. I assumed that whatever app(s) are causing the issue are probably connecting to the net so I went through every app to disable notifications and any automatic downloads, automatic updates, and automatic anything. Anyways, is there a way to track what apps are trying to make connections to the net on a non-rooted phone? I'm going to root my phone soon-ish but in the meanwhile...