Windows XP is Slow - Process Explorer shows Constant Hardware Interrupts
XP Professional SP3AMD 965 x4 Black Edition running 4gb Corsair memoryGigabyte MotherboardWith XP Pro running and no other programs other than Process Explorer, Process Explorer shows continuous 'Interrupts' at 23% avg, with System Idle running about 75%. When looking at the individual cores, it is entirely the 4th core running at 100%. It does this with the network connection enabled or disabled. I've tried individually disabling processes and devices with no changes. There was also no change after reinstalling software and drivers. The interrupts are not there when running in any of the 'Safe Modes'. I searched though the internet and tried suggested solutions with no success. This does slow down my operation quite a bit (25%). Other independent forms report that it happens on various brands of motherboards. Mostly with XP, but a few in Vista. And the the problem seems to have to do with the Microsoft/Atapi drivers on the hard drives. A lot of them reported the problems after Microsoft updates were applied. Some were solved, some are still searching for a solution. I'm in the latter.1 person needs an answerI do too
July 9th, 2010 4:57am

Have you checked to be sure the devices attached to the IDE controllers aren't running in PIO mode instead of DMA mode?IDE ATA and ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors occurCheck the controller in Device Manager to see what the settings are. Note that in the event you do find the device is using PIO instead of DMA, simply changing the drop-down will not be adequate - you have to uninstall and reinstall the controller as described in the workaround section of the referenced article.If that isn't the case, since you're running XP, it seems like you'll be spending some time with KernRate and RATTV3, to try to figure out what's causing the interrupts... x_x
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July 9th, 2010 5:27am

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