Couple of Problems (WTF Happened to All My CPU?, I'm the Admin and

[anathematized1]

Well, a couple of days ago I asked AMD how I could get the driver for it.

They responded and told me to go into the Device Manager and uninstall the device, then it would force me to restart to complete. Then when Windows loads up next, it will automatically find the driver online and install it, then call for another restart.

I did that and it did everything like they said.

Sadly, this didn't fix my high CPU problem.

As far as the USB ports go... I don't know if I have an nForce chipset or not, or how to find out if I do. Also, from what I can tell, all of my USB ports work fine, I mean I plug s*** into them and they work the way they are supposed to.

[MagicAndre1981]

make a new trace ad upload the new trace please

[anathematized1]

Well, I just got my computer back together when you had said that.

What I did today was just simple crap. I opened the computer up and cleaned all the dust out. Apparently that's all it was for some other guy, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Didn't solve a thing. My computer still runs at 40-60% CPU usage and the trace says that the 60% of it is from my Idle Processes and that amdppm.sys is like 95% of idle processes. Then it's got like nine million entries under C1Hault. But I mean, the processor is fine, and I reinstalled the driver for it and that didn't help.

I really honestly can't see what the problem is...

http://www.mediafire.com/file/w611kdyc1ddkdpj/Trace_3.etl

[MagicAndre1981]

Hi, the USBPort driver is the cause of the DPC usage. Does it happen when you disconnect the USB SD card readers and your external USB HDD?

The Interrupt spikes come from the keyboard PS2 driver.

[anathematized1]

Hi, the USBPort driver is the cause of the DPC usage. Does it happen when you disconnect the USB SD card readers and your external USB HDD?

The Interrupt spikes come from the keyboard PS2 driver.

I don't have any USB SD card readers, those readers are built right into the computer. Nothing is in them now.

I have 4 USB ports in the back of the computer, to which the mouse, my speakers, my external HDD, and my webcam are all attached. Those USB ports are chipset. The other four USB ports that I have aren't chipset. Two of them are on top of the computer and two of them are at the front, and the two at the front are part of the SD card reading assembly. The only thing I have plugged into any of those 4 is my Zune.

So, I can't disconnect the card readers, but I D/C'ed the external HDD and the CPU usage is still up, I just D/C'ed my Zune and the usage is STILL up.

Now I have 17 "USB Ports" according to my device manager, but they don't all say the same thing. Two of them say "Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller" and five of them say "Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller" (which must be the SD card readers, because I have exactly five of those) and then two of them say "USB Composite Device" (I'm assuming that's my mouse and webcam) and then one says "USB Mass Storage Device" (obviously my external HDD) and the other seven just say "USB Root Hub."

How do I figure out which one it is? I didn't look to see if all the drivers were the same driver, but I attempted to update the drivers for a couple of them and Microsoft determined that all my drivers for them were up to date. It says the same thing about the keyboard drivers.

I am about to go to bed, but tomorrow I will uninstall the drivers then reinstall them and see what happens.

[anathematized1]

So I reinstalled those drivers - no change in computer behavior, but I have a new problem, one that makes me think all of these problems are interrelated.

You see, I got East/West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra (Play Edition). This is a massive VSTi, which also has a stand alone program. Anyway, it requires a PACE Ilok security key (dongle) to use.

Everything installed without a hitch. After the Ilok drivers installed, I had to restart my computer. No problem. Everything is back up, so I go to authorize/authenticate my EWQLSO and when I go to run the authorizing program, I get a BSOD, which points to the driver TDPK.sys as the cause.

I completely uninstalled the Ilok stuff, then reinstalled it, then did it again and then upgraded to the latest drivers, still BSOD each time.

Well on the last BSOD, I started my computer in safe mode. I was watching the drivers load and one of them that loaded was tdpk.sys (and another one was amdppm.sys). Interestingly, my computer runs fine in safe mode. Since tdpk.sys loaded, I went ahead and tried to run the authorization program for EWQLSO and this time it started up with no BSOD. Of course, I couldn't complete the authorization in safe mode because in safe mode, the computer doesn't recognize that the Ilok dongle is connected.

So how is it that these drivers that I've had a problem with this whole time run fine in safe mode and everything is all crashy and stuff when running in normal mode?

[anathematized1]

New information on this recurrent BSOD related to the tpdk.sys driver.

With the PACE Ilok security key (dongle) not plugged into my computer, I plug it in and I get the same BSOD telling me the same driver was supposedly trying to corrupt system files.

With Ilok plugged in or not, running either the actual program or the authorization program results in a BSOD (the same BDSOD).

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers that came with it, no change.

I have tried uninstalling and installing the drivers Microsoft recommended, no change.

I have tried uninstalling and installing the latest drivers listed on the manufacturer's website, no change.

From doing research, nobody else with Windows 7 (either x86 or x64) have had this problem. It is definitely something wrong with my computer and not with the driver.

Very interestingly, safe mode loads this driver that is supposedly causing all this crap, and then no BSOD. Really weird. However, in safe mode, the computer doesn't recognize the dongle, so the program, and even authorizing it, is useless. I know it's not the dongle itself because when not in safe mode, and with the dongle not in, running either program still results in a BSOD. So something is wrong with my computer.

I was having these same issues with my wireless networking card (it would randomly BSOD at least 1-3 times per day) until I disabled it in the device manager and just decided to plug my standard networking card directly into the router. No BSOD's caused by that.

The only thing I can think of that could cause a problem like this is a virus. The problem is, I've run at least 6 different virus scans (not all at the same time obviously) with everything from Panda to A-squared to Malwarebytes to Trend Micro Securities. There are no more viruses and there is no more malware (though these programs didn't find very many anyway, I think a total of like 14 threats?). I also ran Uniblue RegistryBooster 2010 and I've completely opened up my computer and cleaned out all of the dust.

I really honestly don't know what to do now. The only thing I can do is get my Windows 7 disk and hope that it has "repair installation" options on it.

What's even worse is I've still not gotten to this massive CPU usage problem. Everyone keeps telling me "oh you have a problem with this" and I fix it and yeah, that's good that I got that, but that's not the real problem. Then they tell me "oh you got a problem with that" and I fix that and still NOTHING CHANGES.

[cluberti]

As to the BSODs with drivers and launching programs, it might be useful to do a reinstall (unfortunately) as your time and effort is probably not worth continuing to track it down (unless it continues after the reinstall). You did originally find some viruses on the machine, and I do have a personal preference that any time a machine has been compromised, you can never really fully trust that install is clean ever again.

Normally I don't give up (and I wouldn't, if I had full access to the machine), but in this case it might be worth considering backing up your data and reinstalling Windows clean to at least start from a clean slate.

[anathematized1]

As to the BSODs with drivers and launching programs, it might be useful to do a reinstall (unfortunately) as your time and effort is probably not worth continuing to track it down (unless it continues after the reinstall). You did originally find some viruses on the machine, and I do have a personal preference that any time a machine has been compromised, you can never really fully trust that install is clean ever again.

Normally I don't give up (and I wouldn't, if I had full access to the machine), but in this case it might be worth considering backing up your data and reinstalling Windows clean to at least start from a clean slate.

I can't do a clean reinstall though because I don't have a full install disk for Windows 7 I don't think.

My disk I think was only an upgrade disk, I am not sure, I can't remember.

[anathematized1]

Alright, so apparently somehow System Restore got turned off, so now I don't have any system restore points.

What I WAS going to do was restore my computer all the way back to before I installed this program that was preventing me from going back in system restore because ONE file was infected with a virus and removed from it just before I attempted a system restore.

I mean this is seriously gotten me distressed.

I'm in Virginia, and I don't know if my Windows 7 disk that I have at home will reinstall it to my HDD. On top of that, how in the hell do I back up .6 TB of s***? I mean I have like 5 DVD+RDL disks, but that SO isn't enough. My External HDD is only 120 GB, and even then, it's a FAT32 system, so I can't even put files larger than 1 GB on it.

I think I'm literally going to cry.

[anathematized1]

I mean, knowing what my computer is doing, what would be the next thing you guys would do if it were your computer?

I mean, I took all the logical steps...

• Virus scans (with about 6 different anti-virus programs), found very few viruses but cleaned them out
  
• Malwarebytes scan
  
• Reinstalled drivers/checked for driver updates
  
• Checked for Windows Updates
  
• Ran Windows Performance Toolkit xperf trace analysis and fix problems revealed
  
• Ran registry scan and fixed errors after each action
  
• Ran Check disk (found no errors)
  
• Ran another malware/spyware/rootkit scan (found nothing)
  

Honestly, my computer ran fine in Alabama, before I moved to Virginia. Then my father vacuumed the dust off of the outside of it and drove it up here to me, where I started using it again and it had all these problems with a BSOD caused by the driver for my wireless networking card (which I had never used until I got here) and I tried everything to fix that card, updating drivers, rolling back drivers, and finally gave up on it and disabled it and then just used my regular networking card to hardline into the router. However, during the process of trying to fix that, that's when the second problem came up of my CPU constantly buzzing around 60%. I mean me, with just barely more computer knowledge than the average Joe looked into the problem, I did xperf trace and found that 60% of the usage was going to amdppm.sys (the driver for my processor - AMD Phenom Quad-Core), and I did the logical thing and reinstalled the driver for that and it didn't fix the problem.

There is something seriously wrong with Windows 7 itself to have all these problems, especially with the BSOD's that I've been getting from this PACE Ilok dongle. Anytime the dongle, the program, or the authorization program accesses the tdpk.sys driver, the computer BSOD's. The funny thing though is that in Safe Mode, these programs can access that driver and then there is NO BSOD and they all totally work. The only problem with that is that for me to continue with the registration, the computer has to recognize the Ilok dongle, which it can't do in safe mode. Even if it did, I still wouldn't be able to run the program in normal mode because it has to access that tdpk.sys driver. Both the program (East/West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra) and the PACE Ilok dongle have been tested and are certified to work on Windows 7 (both x86 and x64 types).

A backup of all my data in itself is not practical as I don't have another drive that can hold all that info (600+ GB), and even then, I can't reinstall Windows 7 because my disk is in Alabama, on top of that, I don't even know if I can use it to reinstall Windows 7.

Like, the weird thing is, all of these drives that I've mentioned that I have a problem with, they load and run fine in Safe Mode with no problems. My computer even runs at normal speed. So there has to be something that is broken or corrupt that doesn't load in Safe Mode that loads in standard mode, right?

Edited August 11, 2010 by anathematized1

[anathematized1]

OH, I found the problem.

It's an svchost (at least, the problem that is using up all my CPU). It says the user is "SYSTEM."

I already ended the process, but I know which one it is if I restart my computer.

How do I figure out what this SVChost is related to so I can permanently disable and/or fix it?

[cluberti]

svchost is just a host container for services that don't implement their own service handling (it's also there to save on memory usage). If you run process explorer, you can see which svchost.exe it is, and perhaps even which thread inside of it is consuming the CPU. Remember, an svchost is just a container - it's what is in it that you are interested in.

[anathematized1]

How do I run a process explorer?

I also still can't think for the life of me why the other problem, with the BSOD when trying to authorize this program, happens in normal mode but it works fine in safe mode.

What service/program/whatever does Windows use to determine when a file or driver is supposedly "corrupting the system?" I mean, I know the driver isn't trying to corrupt the system, but Windows seems to think it is. I mean I've installed 3 different versions of it, all from the manufacturer and everything, who are trusted and who's systems have been proven to work in Windows 7.

[cluberti]

How do I run a process explorer?

Download and extract it from the sysinternals site on Technet here, and then simply execute it.

I also still can't think for the life of me why the other problem, with the BSOD when trying to authorize this program, happens in normal mode but it works fine in safe mode.

Not entirely certain without seeing the actual crash dump. You'd need a complete system dump of this, as well, not just a small or kernel dump.

What service/program/whatever does Windows use to determine when a file or driver is supposedly "corrupting the system?" I mean, I know the driver isn't trying to corrupt the system, but Windows seems to think it is. I mean I've installed 3 different versions of it, all from the manufacturer and everything, who are trusted and who's systems have been proven to work in Windows 7.

Windows doesn't necessarily "decide" this at all - it simply detects that a driver has corrupted memory, or caused a page fault in nonpaged pool, or crashes, etc - it then does what it is supposed to do to protect the system, and that is "bugcheck".