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Hardware Interrupt / CPU Usage issue


majik1213

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. At first I had no idea what was going on. By "what was going on," I refer to the cyclic, high CPU usage that literally brought all my computer's functioning to a standstill. About every 5 minutes or so, my CPU usage will jump up to a steady 50%+ for about a minute. Then, the CPU usage drops back to 0-6% (depends on what I'm doing), and finally the cycle repeats. I'm frustrated with this issue because it is vaguely understood (why the understanding is vague is the subject of my next paragraph). I used process explorer to figure out what was eating my CPU usage, as task manager was inaccurate at assessing the situation (while task manager reports ~50% usage, under processes the manager says that the Idle process is running ~99% of my CPU usage, and that contradicts the CPU usage.) Anyways, like I was saying, I used process explorer to try to pin down the issue, and I found it: ~50% CPU usage was due to the "Hardware Interrupt" process, a process that cannot be terminated. So, I will simply call this problem the "hardware interrupt" problem.

Basically, a hardware interrupt occurs when there is a conflict with internal hardware and another part of the system, software or hardware. In my case, the hardware interrupt problem, as I said, is causing the ~50% CPU usage cycles. The solutions to these problems vary from computer to computer, and so there are no general solutions to them. What I have found for my particular computer is the conflict. uTorrent conflicts with my hard drive. I will first support my claim, then I will explain why that may be, and finally I will ask for your help on how to fix this issue.

First, when the ~50% CPU usage cycles occur, they do so only when uTorrent is running. Also, during the same time that the CPU usage is ~50%, my upload speed drops to 0 kB/s. And when the cycle ends, the upload speed returns to its speed before the cycle had begun.

Second, why would this problem happen? I feel that my 372 GB internal hard drive is neither quick nor stable (i.e. low RPM I think and too big to work properly). The hard drive is an IBM / Hitachi 400GB (HDS724040KLAT80) Ultra ATA/100 7200RPM w/8MB Buffer Hard Drive: 0A30228 / 0A30230 (OEM, Factory Sealed), and on more than one occasion I've seen the blue screen of death when I was multi-tasking it (e.g. I was copying a file from it to another internal hard drive and, after opening it in the windows explorer, I got the blue screen of death).

Third, I ask for your help. I think this is a caching/writing to disk issue, and I feel like I can stop this problem by adjusting the settings in uTorrent. I am hoping that you guys could provide the solution to make the CPU usage cycles cease once and for all.

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