50% CPU usage from Hardware Interrupts

[ben_j_davis]

Please help me, for some time now my CPU has been constantly at 50% + usage, for no apparent reason. I downloaded 'Process Explorer' and it seems that about 30-40% of the CPU time is being taken up by Hardware interrupts. Does anyone know how to resolve this?


Thanks,
Ben

 

[Foxor`]

Could be some kinda spyware, im not 100% sure tho, try running some kinda spyware removal tool, spybot search and destroy is a good one,

 

[DavidB]

Sounds like a virus/ spyware, but if its got to the point where its using that much processing power it might be time to do priority backups.

Virus's can hook the interupt's to jump to the malicious code thats executed, which might be what your seeing.... ofcourse it could also be soemthing entirely differnt, but play safe and back stuff up.

 

[Pooh]

I had this problem once and it turned out to be an IDE cable for one of the DVD drives that was not fully connected.

Pushed the connector home fully and bingo.

 

[Defiled]

Also - try temporarily disabling "virtual memory" from Control Panel -> System -> Advanced -> Advanced -> "Virtual Memory" (Change) -> No paging file. You'll only really wanna do this if you have at least 1 Gb of RAM btw! If this solves the issue, id say that the harddisk that stores your page file is on it's way out

 

[ben_j_davis]

Thanks peeps, I'll give all your suggestions a try. I thinking that there is something wrong with the HD as it's been exhibiting some other worrying errors. It's a bit** as the drive is not very old.

 

[Pooh]

If you've any real doubts about your HD then get rid of it ASAP. Drives are so cheap these days it's not worth the risk.

It's also very satisfying taking a hammer to an old HDD.

Who needs expensive software to protect you old data. Mr hammer works every time.

 

[schumi84]

Indeed, use a hammer, used it to destroy many a pc component.

The hammer, tool of a ***** - Top Gear

 

[HEADRAT]

Check your IDE controllers:-

Control Panel > System > Device Manager > IDE/ATA controllers.

if your hard disc is a bit dodgy I bet it has dropped back to PIO mode rather UDMA, this will hammer your CPU

 

[ubern00b]

Funny this, this has started happening on my web server. Its a Virtual Machine hosted in Germany and the hosting company is no help at all. I assumed the host server must have something wrong with the hardware but the response to my ticket is "Hello, no problem with hardware, bye". Ever so helpfull. I would be interested to know what solves this for you!

 

[HEADRAT]

Well I fixed mine by uninstalling the IDE controllers and rebooting, the controllers re-installed and the access method had gone back from PIO to UDMA

 

[wombraider]

I had exactly the same problem with my system a few weeks ago

Turned out it was the hard drive on its way out

What tipped me off was I tried to run HD tach on the drive ( cos it seemed a bit slow ) , it only benched at 3MB/s

 

[Corasik]

Some copy protection systems can trick windows into believing there is a hardware fault, and disable DMA transfers on ATA (IDE) controllers. If this happens performance will plummet, and hardware interrupts will skyrocket.

It's not always a 'real' hardware fault.

 

[ben_j_davis]

Check your IDE controllers:-

Control Panel > System > Device Manager > IDE/ATA controllers.

if your hard disc is a bit dodgy I bet it has dropped back to PIO mode rather UDMA, this will hammer your CPU

Thanks for the advice HEADRAT, the moment I unistalled the driver i saw the hardware interrupt disappear. True that I no longer have the nVidia IDE controllers installed now, but i doubt that will make any difference performance wise.

 

[HEADRAT]

Now try re-installing the Nvidia Driver, if the hard disc is dodgy you may find it will go back to PIO mode again though!.

 

[PhilipM]

Well I fixed mine by uninstalling the IDE controllers and rebooting, the controllers re-installed and the access method had gone back from PIO to UDMA

Does the same hold true for SATA RAID 0 setups? I've always thought that my current setup was never quite right. If playing music it tends to interupt when you open another application. Don't ever remember that on previous PCs....

 

[Pooh]

I had that issue as well.

I always assumed it was a bandwith problem with the way the SATA controllers were connected to the system.

As soon as I reverted back to non raid setup with the drives, all was fine.