hottroc

I think I remember something in the BIOS about that. I'll check it out.

Afraid so, yes, it does still occur. I try uninstalling different USB devices including hubs and controllers in Device Manager but so far I still cannot solve it. Oddly the time taken for the problem to recur following a reboot does not appear to be constant. Sometimes it can be 2-3 hours, sometimes (usually) longer up to a few days. I wonder if there is a loose solder joint on my motherboard or something, but I just can't tell. I did think the internal card reader was the main suspect but still not sure. I have now changed it for a spare one I had laying around (same model) but the problem has still reappeared since so... I've sort of given up a bit, it was driving me nuts and taking up lots of time so I have just let it go and decided to just put up with the occasional reboot (on average a couple of days I suppose).

Me again. My problem is still not resolved although it took a long time to reappear. The variation you mentioned in post #467 did not seem to give any more information than the normal method. I cannot run a cleanboot for reasons given earlier ie the problem sometimes takes days to appear and a reboot cures it till the next time. Never mind. hottroc.

OK, will do. It is a great shame that xperf and LatencyMon cannot be improved to show exactly which device was causing the problem. That would be much more useful. As it stands there is little benefit to using them (for me anyway) over the normal trial and error of removing one device at a time, which was eventually what I had to do anyway more or less. Still your help has been very welcome and I really appreciate it. Thanks.

Since my last post my interrupts problem hasn't occurred, been a few days now. I am hoping my issue may have been fixed. Not really sure how though. I think it may have something to do with my internal card reader (which I think is connected to an internal USB port?) as one of my troubleshooting steps included uninstalling that (then Windows redetected it), but I also changed the drivers on my internal modem. Anyway we'll see, thanks for your help thus far.

Hi, thanks for your response.... yes it seems to. What do you mean "without stack traces"? How do I get these? Or do you mean the Memory dump? You will see in an earlier post I offered to upload the memory dump for inspection. Would this help? MagicAndre1981 - was your post #467 aimed at me?

I didn't get much response from cluberti I'm afraid. He did reply to my PM, by PM, saying that he would look at my trace in a few days time, but that was ages ago well before you asked him in this topic. I've since sent a reminder PM but got no reply from that, so maybe he's too busy to help. Maybe when he has some free time he will respond. In the meantime, recently it has seemed a little better, going somewhat longer between occurrences of the interrupt problem. I have no idea why or even if it's just my imagination but I'll keep observing and let you know if I find anything else out.

OK, great, I'll do that, thanks. Ask cluberti, that is. I wouldn't hold out much hope of MS helping.

I think I answered that in post #390. It sounds like this topic isn't the answer I hoped it would be. Basically I cannot understand why there is no tool available that can show what device is using the interrupts. Surely Microsoft should have invented this by now. I would have thought it was an essential part of any OS to know when and what devices are calling for action, but xperf isn't really helping here. Is there another tool that can do what I need? Having said that I do want to thank you for your help and effort. I really appreciate it even if in this instance the answer wasn't found.

Another new trace when the problem re-occurred: http://cid-ac6270209775c627.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?resid=AC6270209775C627!162 This was with all the USB things disabled that I mentioned.

The problem occurred yesterday again, I tried to disable AVG but there doesn't appear to be any way to do so without completely uninstalling. I can disable individual elements, so I just disabled the Identity Protection feature but it didn't seem to make any difference. I have disabled all my USB devices (I think) in Device Manager now so will see if that has an effect. I'll post a new trace if/when the problem occurs next time.

Sorry our posts crossed, see my EDIT2.

Hi, thanks again for your efforts. As far as I can find out I already updated my HD audio and display drivers from the Asrock web site months ago and nothing is found if I search for updated drivers from Device Manager. Yes I have one of those (card reader - connected via internal USB) along with a webcam, printer, erm...oh, a wireless joystick, erm...that's it I think. Other things are plugged in as and when needed like my phone, camera etc but not while I've been doing the traces here. Haven't tried but I'll try disabling it next time the problem occurs. I wouldn't want to leave it disabled for long. Is the IDSFilter.sys just related to the Identity Protection feature? If so could I just disable that particular part? As discussed above the display is integrated on the MB so I've always just used the drivers from Asrock. To my knowledge I am using the latest ones from them. EDIT - Actually I may be wrong, I have a vague memory that maybe I did use a driver directly from Intel some time ago. Dev Mgr shows it as v. 8.15.10.1930 dated 23/09/2009 from Intel so that sounds like what I did. I'll have another look there at Intel website now. EDIT2 - Yep that looks like the latest driver, (strangely also numbered as 15.12.75.4.64.1930). Intel now describes it as discontinued so I don't know if they're updating it anymore?

Hi, me again, I have uploaded a new trace as requested. Here is the link: http://cid-ac6270209775c627.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?resid=AC6270209775C627!162 Please note that I had to compress it twice so you will need to uncompress it twice. This now is without the USB HDD caddy or the sptd driver. Thanks, hottroc.

Hi, now we know, the problem re-occurs even with the external HDD caddy completely disconnected. So it's not that. Tbh, I was hoping there was a way to find out the cause of the interrupt problem without going through a process of elimination of every hardware and software driver possible. I was hoping that was what this topic would give me.

Hi, well when the problem occurred I tried turning off and disconnecting the ext. HDD but it made no difference. So now I'm waiting to see if the problem occurs after having rebooted and leaving the ext HDD disconnected completeley. We should know soon enough.

Me again, it seems yet again I spoke too soon. The issue has returned. I think this proves it is not the sptd driver which was completely uninstalled. I have attached a link to a new trace. Please let me know if you have any other ideas what might cause the interrupt problem? Are there any other things that show as UNKNOWN in this situation? Thanks. Link: http://cid-ac6270209775c627.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?resid=AC6270209775C627!162 Regards, hottroc. PS I increased the buffersize in this trace as per one of your earlier posts. EDIT - having looked at this new trace now myself I see that "UNKOWN" has disappeared, replaced by something else (USBPORT.SYS) so maybe the Unknown WAS to do with the sptd driver but it was somehow masking the real driver/problem. I wonder if this could point to the external USB-SATA drive caddy/cradle I have attached? That might make sense perhaps? Although I think I tried unplugging it in the past to no avail but I'll check.

Hi, I'm wondering if I spoke too soon in my last post. Maybe I hadn't rebooted or something (which I have now) but now, he says rather tentatively, it seems to be behaving itself. So I can't upload a new trace yet because it's not exhibiting the same behaviour. But I'm not totally sure its fixed yet so I'll keep my eye on it over the next few days and report back. In the meantime can you tell me....1) Is this sptd driver problem also likely to have caused the other issues I mentioned briefly in post #390?...and 2) Are there likely to be any undesired effects from uninstalling the driver? I think Active ISO Burner may use it that I have installed but any others? Many many thanks for your help on this. The problem has been bugging me for ages so if you have fixed it, which is looking promising at the mo, I will be really in your debt. Regards, hottroc.

Hi, OK well it doesn't seem to be the sptd driver then because the problem still occurred. As far as I am aware I already have the latest sound drivers available for my mb with my OS according to the Asrock website. Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks, really appreciate the help.

Hi, well what I did, I downloaded the file as you recommended and when i ran it it obviously recognised I had an old version as it gave me the option to update the sptd.sys so i thought i'd try that (hopefully to avoid any of my progs not working). Then I didn't want to speak too soon, I was waiting, and it got close to the point where i was going to say you had fixed it... But then unfortunately just now the problem re-occurred. I will now try to disable it completely and try again but in the meantime I have uploaded a new etl file for your perusal. As far as I can tell the problem is the same..."UNKNOWN". Would you like to view the memory dump I saved before? Here is the link for the ETL file: http://cid-ac6270209775c627.skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?resid=AC6270209775C627!162 Thanks again.

OK, thanks, I'm giving this a go now. I'll get back to you.

I found this line in a OTL scan: DRV - (sptd [boot | Running]) -- C:\Windows\sysnative\Drivers\sptd.sys () ...which seems to indicate it IS running but I don't know why, what starts it or how to stop it.

Hi, no I don't but I use other sw that might be similar. The phrase SPTD driver rings a bell. I use or have used Ashampoo Burning Studio, DLA (not with W7), Roxio Easy Media Creator, UltraIso, Nero etc Also programs like Paragon Partition Manager and there was another I had installed (name escapes me) for drive imaging for backup purposes.

Well neither of those approaches work tbh, that's why I'm here. I've had quite a few problems with hard drives before,....they never seem to last longer than 18 months or so, often report that they are predicting failure (even when nearly new) etc. I've tried different cables and SATA ports when I've had those problems before and they've not made a difference and I've ended up buying new hdd's. But I didn't think the problem was related to the interrupt problem.... If I recall a long time ago I had the same problem with interrupts in XP and Microsoft eventually issued something but I cant remember what, that fixed it. It may have been SATA driver updates or something. And the problem only came back when I installed Windows 7. Also I have tried killing processes one by one to see if the problem goes away once it has started happening but it's impossible to do the other way round because the problem is not there all the time. You can't do a clean boot, wait 48 hours or more then start a driver, wait 48 more hours start another etc.

I can't find any reference to it in the BIOS or anywhere else. Closest I can get is ACPI. The MB is an Asrock 775i945GZ and the Hard drives are both pretty modern SATA ones. What do you suggest next?