How to get the cause of high CPU usage by DPC / Interrupt

[MagicAndre1981]

The only upgrades I have seen are the ones you have to pay for, but tbh, I havent been looking that hard.

use the AVG Free version use MSE 2.0.

Im not sure about having the externals on or off, I usually have them on cause I do a lot of work off of them.

try it without the HDD and see what happens.

[MagicAndre1981]

Both the drives I use are SATA. 1 is a Seagate Baracuda ST31000333AS ATA, and the second is a Western Digital Green drive WDC WD5000AACS-00G8B1 ATA both using ATAPI-8.

Do you run them AHCI or IDE mode?

Do you think this is a Windows 7 problem specifically? Wondering if I went back to XP if the problem would be solved.

I'm also using an older IDE drive for my backups and I have no issue under Windows 7.

[KillAwatt1705]

Hey Andre,

First of all thank you very much for this guide, if it wasn't for you then I would be tearing my hair out now.

As for the problem, it seems to be ACPI.sys that's causing all the issues. Yet I have no idea what ACPI.sys actually does so I have no idea where to start. I do know however that after a clean boot the problem does seem to go away. Also, the CPU usage symptoms arise only when I launch a game and play it. Afterwards, when the game is closed, the CPU usage still remains very high, I've observed for a while to see if the problem might calm down, but it still persists way after the game's process has ended.

Here's a screenshot of my results:

http://www.imageupload.org/?di=12129271965916

Very much appreciated Andre, and sorry for the trouble.

[MagicAndre1981]

can you upload the trace file (zip it first), please?

[KillAwatt1705]

can you upload the trace file (zip it first), please?

Ah yes, completely forgot. Here's the link below:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SXBML7SL

[MagicAndre1981]

are you using the latest BIOS? What is your power plan setting?

[KillAwatt1705]

are you using the latest BIOS? What is your power plan setting?

Not sure about the latest BIOS, I'll double check. But as far as Power Plan settings go, they're all on high performance so that shouldn't be the cause.

Ill try the latest firmware for my MB and come back to you.

[KillAwatt1705]

After checking my BIOS version, it is the latest and up to date according to Abit. Any other ideas as to what could be causing the problem?

Edited December 20, 2010 by KillAwatt1705

[demokid18]

Both the drives I use are SATA. 1 is a Seagate Baracuda ST31000333AS ATA, and the second is a Western Digital Green drive WDC WD5000AACS-00G8B1 ATA both using ATAPI-8.

Do you run them AHCI or IDE mode?

Do you think this is a Windows 7 problem specifically? Wondering if I went back to XP if the problem would be solved.

I'm also using an older IDE drive for my backups and I have no issue under Windows 7.

They were in IDE. Now in AHCI (with proper drivers installed) and the problem persists. Have tried Windows 7 Home Premium (32 and 64bit), Professional(64), and now Ultimate(64), and each time have the same error. How important are the ataport.sys files? Could I simply delete them or are they crucial parts of the OS?

[MagicAndre1981]

After checking my BIOS version, it is the latest and up to date according to Abit. Any other ideas as to what could be causing the problem?

I have no idea. Contact the MS Support.

They were in IDE. Now in AHCI (with proper drivers installed) and the problem persists. Have tried Windows 7 Home Premium (32 and 64bit), Professional(64), and now Ultimate(64), and each time have the same error. How important are the ataport.sys files? Could I simply delete them or are they crucial parts of the OS?

the driver is very important. Have you made a new trace? is the driver still the cause?

[rojomojo915]

Unplugging the drives seem to have solved the issues. Thanks Andre

[demokid18]

They were in IDE. Now in AHCI (with proper drivers installed) and the problem persists. Have tried Windows 7 Home Premium (32 and 64bit), Professional(64), and now Ultimate(64), and each time have the same error. How important are the ataport.sys files? Could I simply delete them or are they crucial parts of the OS?

the driver is very important. Have you made a new trace? is the driver still the cause?

Here are the two newest traces, with new culprits...

My link

My link

[MagicAndre1981]

Unplugging the drives seem to have solved the issues. Thanks Andre

ok, so the USB drive was the cause for the USBport issue. Nice to hear that it is fixed now.

Here are the two newest traces, with new culprits...

which SCSI devices do you use? Have you updated the Audio drivers?

[demokid18]

I installed the drivers from the cd and went to realteks site and downloaded their audio drivers. I don't think I have any scsi devices... As far as hardware goes, I have my two sata drives currently in ahci mode, a sata dvd drive, heatsink, vga card, vga switch card (allows me to use the pci-e slot in full 16x when only using 1 vga card), cpu, mobo, and thats it.

[demokid18]

Thought I'd leave an update...

Well, I've discovered what "general" thing was causing the problem. It was my seperate graphics card (nvidia 9800gtx+). I called Asus tech support and the guy suggested I try using the onboard graphics to see if that helps... and it did. I haven't gotten the high cpu usage or driver interrupts at all! Only problem is, on board graphics suck and I want to use my own card!! Now that we're one step closer, any idea what could cause a graphics card to cause the high usage or what would it even have to do with the drivers it was causing to have issues with )like ndis.sys, ataport.sys?)