High-CPU use from Interrupts

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jason

I have had my Acer TravelMate for about a year now, and had not had any
problems up until now. Since last week I have had a problem with
60/70+% of the CPU being used all the time. Using SysInternal's Process
Explorer, I was able to see that the cause of this was due to a
"process" called 'Interrupts'.

I have spent a lot of time looking on the internet for solutions to
this problem, but am yet to find one that works... I have tried
disabling all the USB devices in Device Manager as recommended in
another post on this site (a very old post I might add), and this
appeared to work, temporarily! The post also said to try the same thing
with the IEEE 1394 device, I did this with it tried separately and in
conjunction with the USB devices being disabled.

Doing the above stops the process using all the CPU all the time, so if
my computer is idle, then it is fine. However whenever I try to run a
program or anything similar the Interrupts process jumps back up to
80/90% until the program has become stable and isn't doing anything
else.

Other problems that this appears to cause is that when I'm booting, the
system tries to run chkdsk, but every time gets to where it says 0%
checked... and then freezes, but if I skip the scan then it will get to
Windows fine (although very slowly). I have left it on 0% scanned for
well over an hour just to make sure its not just working very slowly,
and it doesn't get any further. I have also tried to run in Safe Mode
and it gets to the same point each time, just after it has loaded
'Mup.sys' and again it freezes.

The problem appears to be linked with accessing the hard drive, as when
I run chkdsk from within windows it runs fine but the interrupt process
is at 80/90% for the duration of the check, but drops down to normal at
the exact point the scan completes. And if I'm playing music on my
computer when a song loads the process jumps up again, but then plays
fine once the song has started playing.

Another post on the site said to try a Microsoft logging program called
RATTV3. Having analysed the results from this (well the best I can) it
looks like there are issues with the following three drivers:

atapi.sys
acpi.sys
ndis.sys

However, I have no idea where to go from here.

If anyone has any further information that might help, please let me
know, as this is very frustrating! I'd rather not have to reformat my
hard drive, and I've been lead to believe that just
re-installing/repairing Windows will not fix this problem.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Rgds,
Jason.
 
I have had my Acer TravelMate for about a year now, and had not had any
problems up until now. Since last week I have had a problem with
60/70+% of the CPU being used all the time. Using SysInternal's Process
Explorer, I was able to see that the cause of this was due to a
"process" called 'Interrupts'.

I have spent a lot of time looking on the internet for solutions to
this problem, but am yet to find one that works... I have tried
disabling all the USB devices in Device Manager as recommended in
another post on this site (a very old post I might add), and this
appeared to work, temporarily! The post also said to try the same thing
with the IEEE 1394 device, I did this with it tried separately and in
conjunction with the USB devices being disabled.

Doing the above stops the process using all the CPU all the time, so if
my computer is idle, then it is fine. However whenever I try to run a
program or anything similar the Interrupts process jumps back up to
80/90% until the program has become stable and isn't doing anything
else.

Other problems that this appears to cause is that when I'm booting, the
system tries to run chkdsk, but every time gets to where it says 0%
checked... and then freezes, but if I skip the scan then it will get to
Windows fine (although very slowly). I have left it on 0% scanned for
well over an hour just to make sure its not just working very slowly,
and it doesn't get any further. I have also tried to run in Safe Mode
and it gets to the same point each time, just after it has loaded
'Mup.sys' and again it freezes.

The problem appears to be linked with accessing the hard drive, as when
I run chkdsk from within windows it runs fine but the interrupt process
is at 80/90% for the duration of the check, but drops down to normal at
the exact point the scan completes. And if I'm playing music on my
computer when a song loads the process jumps up again, but then plays
fine once the song has started playing.

Another post on the site said to try a Microsoft logging program called
RATTV3. Having analysed the results from this (well the best I can) it
looks like there are issues with the following three drivers:

atapi.sys
acpi.sys
ndis.sys

However, I have no idea where to go from here.

If anyone has any further information that might help, please let me
know, as this is very frustrating! I'd rather not have to reformat my
hard drive, and I've been lead to believe that just
re-installing/repairing Windows will not fix this problem.

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

Rgds,

Hi Jason,
Go to the Device manager and see if the IRQs all are OKay and there isn't
confilect.
I also would check for the Update drivers for these USBs,from the
Manufacturer website for the same Specs and version of the USB you have.
Try this KB and see if it will apply to you:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279256

It will be helpful if mentioned the kind/make of USB you have for US to know
the make.
HTH.
Regs,
nass
 
Hi Jason,
Go to the Device manager and see if the IRQs all are OKay and there isn't
confilect.
I also would check for the Update drivers for these USBs,from the
Manufacturer website for the same Specs and version of the USB you have.
Try this KB and see if it will apply to you:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/279256

It will be helpful if mentioned the kind/make of USB you have for US to know
the make.
HTH.
Regs,
nass

Hi, I've checked the IRQs and there is no conflict reported. The USBs
are part of an Intel Chipset, I have been unable to find out the exact
model. The drivers were already loaded when I got the laptop. I've
downloaded the latest from the Acer website for my model but I don't
think it updated the drivers at all. I've looked on the Intel website,
and can't find anything about USB driver updates either, just an
install utility which supposedly makes sure the O/S knows what the
devices are
(http://www.intel.com/support/chipsets/inf/sb/CS-021325.htm) - I think
this is what's on the Acer site as well.

Just to let you know, I have a Acer TravelMate 3220 running XP Pro with
SP2 and all the latest updates. Its an Intel Centrino processor, ATI
graphics card - if there's anything else you need to know, just ask.

Cheers,
Jason.
 
I have had my Acer TravelMate for about a year now, and had not had any
problems up until now. Since last week I have had a problem with
60/70+% of the CPU being used all the time. ....
Another post on the site said to try a Microsoft logging program called
RATTV3. Having analysed the results from this (well the best I can) it
looks like there are issues with the following three drivers:

atapi.sys
acpi.sys
ndis.sys

However, I have no idea where to go from here.

That may have been my post. I found the following KB article, and it helped
me work around the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/en-us.

The problem in my case is that the hard disk in my Compaq nc6230 laptop was
timing out after resuming from standby. Apparently, when this happens too
many times, the atapi.sys driver begins downgrading the method used for data
access from (in my case) Ultra DMA 5, all the way down to PIO! The high
level of interrupt usage was simply the driver reading data from the disk
"by hand".

The workaround was to use Device Manager to uninstall the atapi.sys driver
("Primary IDE Channel" on my system). Then reboot. On restart, the system
detected the drive and added back the atapi.sys driver - with the defaults.

That "solved" my problem, though I'll have to keep an eye on things. The
article talks about more permanent solutions, but I had trouble deciphering
it as it talks about four different platforms with slightly different
solutions for each.

Good Luck,
John
 
John said:
That may have been my post. I found the following KB article, and it helped
me work around the problem: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472/en-us. ....
The workaround was to use Device Manager to uninstall the atapi.sys driver
("Primary IDE Channel" on my system). Then reboot. On restart, the system
detected the drive and added back the atapi.sys driver - with the defaults.

Worked like a charm, thank you very much!

Cheers,
Jason.
 
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