DPCs hitting processor every second?

[Paperlantern]

OK, ive got a dousey, i'm pressed for time, i'll try and cram as much in here in a smuch as i can type in 5 minutes.

the system is a Dell X200 laptop, Running Windows XP Pro, When the system is hooked to a LAN cable thats live, it will get an address and work fin on booting, no issues are present. if the system is not hooked to the cable when its booted, the system has a noticeable pause every second as the mous cursor hangs, or programs halt for a moment. Checking the performance monitor shows a CPU spike every second evenly accross the board to about 34%. The computer also will not detect a LAN cable if its its plugged into the machine while its on. Ina ddition, there wont even be a link present on the hub that the cable is plugged into, and the port is known good.

process Explorer shows under system idle processes something known as DPCs Deferred Procedure Calls, and its hitting 32% each second causing the spike. I have removed the lan driver and re installed, i have disabled "allow the system to turn off this device to save power". I have read that someone else found that there was an open direct cable connection causing this on his PC, and he just had to remove the parallel cable assiciated with that to end the spike. but there are no other cables connected to this one. everyone help, i will bring the PC home with me just in case someone comes up with something tonight to try, thanks all

John

 

[montag451]

is the NIC for a token network by any chance?

 

[helpmeout]

Check out Google, several hits. Here's one that talks about a driver (Win2K, but prob the same):

http://www.beyondlogic.org/interrupts/winnt_isr_dpc.htm

 

[Paperlantern]

its a NIC, onboard on the laptop motherboard. and yes thats an example of one, but i want to know why this ones hitting the processor every second when theres no network plugged in, and when there is, its fine. i am completely stumped

 

[montag451]

does event viewer show any warnings or errors?

 

[helpmeout]

Don't know about your problem, but I know onboard NIC's are often times messed up. I had one last year on my last Dell, a 4600 desktop, that wouldn't allow a new IP somehow. Never figured the problem out, but after 3-4 days decided to try an ethernet card. Spent $15 and problem was solved. Try the easy way...

 

[Paperlantern]

well the comp is trying to access some scripts that arent available... but i wouldnt think that would matter because they wouldnt be available at our shop, when its connected to our LAN, since its not the clients network. those are all the errors found under application, security and system show notthing out fo the ordinary, well wait a minute, it is having a problem starting the parallel port, another thred a read on another message board had that issue, i mentioned it in the start of the thread, heres the event...

"The parallel port driver failed to start due to the following error: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has no enabled devices associated with it."

..... HMMMMM .... that makes sense... since there IS NO PARALLEL PORT... but it SHOULDNT cause this problem

i dunno, i'm still stumped

 

[Paperlantern]

Well i ended up throwing a new HDD in the lappy and installed XP pro on it, to rule out a hardware issue, i wanted to know for sure if it was the computer or the nic causing it, or if it it was something software. The fresh load worked great, i was able to turn the comp on without a cable plugged in, the cpu spiking wasnt present, and i could plug one in while it was on and it pop on, grab an IP and work fine. I told the customer that since Dell doesnt cover software, i'm not sure hed want to pay for us to figure it out, and he didnt, so he will probably back up his users stuff, and re image the machine... problem solved... sort of

 

[xxwabbit]

Hi all, hopefully its ok to post my hopefully similar problem in someone elses thread. When I first boot up, everything is fine. Cpu usage at 4-5%. Than when I go play a game such as sof2, Teh Lag begins. TM is showing System at 50-99% constant. Even if I reboot machine it stays. If I turn off comp and let sit for a while, it goes away. I've run Process explorer and found under System Idle process, hardware interrupts, DPC and System. Bouncing back and forth between DPC and System. If I go into properties on System, it shows two threads: ACPI.sys+0x10b10 with most usage and ntoskml.exe!ExQueueWorkItem+0x2f coming in second. Does anyone know what these may mean.
Just so you know, a week ago I moved everything out of my old case and put them in a new case. Only thing different in this case is the fans. There are two in front and one in back. 2 in front are hooked up to psu. with their own controller. The back one to MB. They don't seem to make any difference. Just wanted you to know. Hopefully I didn't screw something up when I was hooking everything back up.
Specs: p4 2.6, 1.3 rdram, Dell MB, 9800pro 256 BBA, 425 psu , xp home sp2

 

[Paperlantern]

hi and welcome to the forums! I sure dont mind if you post it here, but you might get more of a response if you make your own thread. As far as the problem goes i cant help much more then to make the suggestion to completely reload all of the systems drivers. Thats what i was going to try with the system i had if he wanted to have it worked on through us. Just blow them all away one by one, and reload them from scratch, dont let the computer redetect on its own, it will use the same old driver, try a fresh one. But its definitly a software problem, maybe a spyware or virus thing to, that was step 2 i had in mind if the driver thing didnt work. Good luck.