High CPU usage for hardware interrupts - NIC activation issue

[Ashish Goenkar]

I have got AsRock P4i65G motherboard and I am running Windows XP on it with on Sata hard drive. Also a PCI card RTL8169 is installed to an onboard network controller RTL8139 and the prior one is active. After the installation the system was running smoothly without any problems. But from last 2-3 days I am getting 50% of CPU usage that is attributed to hardware which is interrupted by the Sysinternals Process Explorer. The computer is now running very slowly. I have checked that the BIOS is upto date and also are the drivers are the latest. I have found that when I disable the NIC2 RTL8139 then there is no change but when I re-enable NIC2 then hardware interrupts goes down to zero and remains so until I restart the system. Can anyone explain what should I do to solve this issue?

[Big Fish]

You should disable the RTL8139 (NIC2), if you are not using it by going into BIOS instead of going into the device manager and check if that solves the problem. Also, if you are using IDE mode for a Sata drive then it will gradually slow down the system. So, you can try to change that if you have not done that already. When you go into the Device Manager then are you seeing any problems like any yellow exclamation marks or something.

[JUSTICE]

You should try to download the latest set of drivers for the motherboard that you have. And then try to start by installing the chipset drivers and then uninstall each of the remaining device drivers and then install the newer driver for same. Also, check to see if there are any newer drivers for the NIC that you have installed.

[QuimeraEc]

Hello

Indirectly, some programs may also generate this behavior, not just some software drivers or hardware conflicts.

It is also true that this kind of problem is difficult to reproduce (for support or test purposes) because it depends on many variables to achieve this.

There is a program that can create a situation as described by you, is called Daemon Tools (version 4 or later). This excellent piece of software installs a virtual CDROM drive and in some cases can cause a -high cpu usage- problem.