High CPU usage in Windows XP

[nissanman]

Hi all

Recently, my friend gave me his computer so i could upgrade the hard drive for him. I upgraded his hard drive from his old 80gb to a new 320gb.

For some reason, in Windows XP Pro SP2, the cpu usage is constantly high. It fluctuates between 60 and 70% at idle.

I read around on the internet and some people downloaded a program called Microsoft Process Explorer to tell them what process is using the cpu. It turns out that 'Hardware Interrupts' was causing their problem. I download the Process Explorer and it turns out that the 'Hardware Interrupts' process is whats using the CPU on my friends computer aswell.

What does this mean? Why is this process using the cpu so much while the system is idling?

I tried reinstalling windows which didnt solve a thing. I truly have no idea why this is happening.

Any help would be much appreciated as my friend would really like his computer back.

Thanks, Nissanman

Edit: His CPU is an AMD Athlon 64 3000+ and he has 512MB of Ram

 

[Tmagic650]

Bump the total RAM to 1GB and update XP to SP3... Running XP, SP2 shows that you are missing many critical Microsoft updates that could also effect the CPU usage

 

[bwchato]

SP3

i installed sp3 a while back and everything is working fine.i have 3gb of memory.when i check processor use it's usually very low to nonexistant

 

[habbfan]

Using Task manager, click on the process tab and sort by name. If the process 'csrss.exe' i running at more than '00' yu are experiencing pofie corruption. This beast can be beaten without nuking your profile but that IS an option. Personal experience speaking here.

 

[nissanman]

k, just tried that. The csrss.exe process is not using the cpu at all. It just stays at '00'

 

[habbfan]

Well, what is using so much CPU?

 

[nissanman]

like i explained in my first post

Nothing in taskmanager is using all the cpu like that except for the system idle process which is completely normal.

In the process explorer i downloaded, it shows that the hardware interrupts process is using the cpu so much.

But i have no idea why and how to fix it.

 

[habbfan]

Try a different mouse and keyboard. You may have a sticking key or some such.

 

[habbfan]

Here is another thing to look at:

http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2006/03/lousy-performance-high-hardware.html

 

[nissanman]

Well, i already did that.

I had it hooked up to my keyboard, mouse and monitor when i installed windows and the cpu usage was high.

Right now, its hooked up to a completely different keyboard, mouse and monitor but the cpu usage hasnt changed.

I also just tried installing xp sp3 which didnt work either. Maybe theres something wrong with some hardware inside the computer?

 

[habbfan]

Here is another thing to look at:

http://frazzleddad.blogspot.com/2006/03/lousy-performance-high-hardware.html

 

[nissanman]

ok, i treid that just now.

It didnt work either unfortunately.

I was thinking, i know that the nfore3 chipset is apparently quite buggy. This is what my friend has. Maybe is has something to do with the chipset?

 

[habbfan]

My experience with the nForce 3 set has been a long and quite happy one that is still ongoing. I dual boot it with XPand Ubuntu and all is right with the world.

I would suggest trying a second user account. I still suspect the csrss.exe problem as it can be sneaky.

 

[04ihegba]

I am surprised no-one has suggested this yet, seeing as the problem is HARDWARE interrupts.

If your HDD is a dud, but the problem isn't on the actual platter, (eg your cache is damaged) that could cause a problem that requires lots of interreupts. The other fault could be hardware conflicts.

Go to start>accessories>system tools>system information and printscreen then post your IRQs page and your Conflicts/Sharing page if that page is not empty.
(they are both under the Hardware Resources Tab)

 

[habbfan]

I had a good seep on this and remembered that some of the Nvidia IDE drivers could cause disk corruption. I would check to see if they are in use here and if so uninstall them as the MS one work well.

 

[skydood]

hi since i have the same problem with nissanman..i hope u can too pls help me with this...these are copies of my conflict/sharing and IRQ's as i can't printscreen these because my prontscreen key is jammed..please i appreciate every help i could get from u guys..^^

IRQ 0 High precision event timer OK
IRQ 1 Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard OK
IRQ 4 Communications Port (COM1) OK
IRQ 6 Standard floppy disk controller OK
IRQ 8 High precision event timer OK
IRQ 9 Microsoft ACPI-Compliant System OK
IRQ 13 Numeric data processor OK
IRQ 14 Primary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 15 Secondary IDE Channel OK
IRQ 16 VIA Chrome9 HC IGP Family OK
IRQ 17 Microsoft UAA Bus Driver for High Definition Audio OK
IRQ 20 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 21 VIA Serial ATA Controller - 5337 OK
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 21 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller OK
IRQ 22 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 23 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller OK
IRQ 23 VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter OK
IRQ 27 VIA PCI to PCI Bridge Controller OK
IRQ 31 VIA PCI to PCI Bridge Controller OK


I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 Direct memory access controller
I/O Port 0x00000000-0x00000CF7 PCI bus

I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF VIA CPU to AGP Controller
I/O Port 0x000003C0-0x000003DF VIA Chrome9 HC IGP Family

Memory Address 0xF4000000-0xF7FFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller
Memory Address 0xF4000000-0xF7FFFFFF VIA Chrome9 HC IGP Family

IRQ 21 VIA Serial ATA Controller - 5337
IRQ 21 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 21 Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller

Memory Address 0xD8000000-0xFEBFFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xD8000000-0xFEBFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller

IRQ 23 VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller
IRQ 23 VIA Rhine II Fast Ethernet Adapter

Memory Address 0xFB000000-0xFCFFFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller
Memory Address 0xFB000000-0xFCFFFFFF VIA Chrome9 HC IGP Family

Memory Address 0xFE800000-0xFE8003FF High precision event timer
Memory Address 0xFE800000-0xFE8003FF System board

Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA CPU to AGP Controller
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF VIA Chrome9 HC IGP Family
Memory Address 0xA0000-0xBFFFF PCI bus

I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB VIA CPU to AGP Controller
I/O Port 0x000003B0-0x000003BB VIA Chrome9 HC IGP Family

Memory Address 0xFEA00000-0xFEA000FF Motherboard resources
Memory Address 0xFEA00000-0xFEA000FF System board

 

[skydood]

Using Task manager, click on the process tab and sort by name. If the process 'csrss.exe' i running at more than '00' yu are experiencing pofie corruption. This beast can be beaten without nuking your profile but that IS an option. Personal experience speaking here.

dude yes if this happens..what would i need to do with this?

 

[nissanman]

Ok, i tried creating a new user account on the system which, again, did not fix the issue.

I am almost 100% sure that there is nothing wrong with the hard drive as a bought it brand new a year before and it was running in my pc without any issues.

Unfortunately, i do not have my friends pc here with me at the moment. But i will check for any hardware conflicts next time im at his house. And i will post some screenshots.

Also, i was having trouble installing his network driver (turned out just to be the wrong driver). I tried loading his bioses optimized defaults (to try and fix the now fixed network issue) which of course didnt do anything. Maybe when i loaded the bioses defaults something went wrong??? Im not sure if the cpu usage was high before i did that as i didnt check.

Edit: Also forgot to mention that his computer is lagging extremely badly in games now (possibly due to the cpu usage) but is also freezing and going into an infinite loop. It was doing that with his old 6600GT video card before i replaced it with his new Radeon HD3650. It was not lagging or freezing before i installed the new HDD and reinstalled windows. Infact. It could run anygame that was throwen at it without much issue.

 

[clarkekent]

i had this problem and ran across advice to try disabling usb controllers - i tried it and it worked- now im trying to figure out why one of the usb controllers is causing the problem. IRQ problem?
try them disabling them one by one in device manager and see if its the culprit