Interruptions

[BleakCoffee]

Evening, all. So for the last few days I've been trying to resolve an Interrupt problem. One night while playing BC2 and Black Ops I was noticing some recurring stuttering, even during calm situations. I brought up Task Manager and noticed "System" (with the description NT Kernel & Logger) was hogging 33% of my CPU. I ran xperf and found that USBport.sys was the main culprit of hardware interruptions.

I tried many different solutions: switching USB ports, updating drivers and BIOS, making sure HDD was on DMA mode, reinstalling USB drivers, reverting to old graphics card, etc. Alas, nothing worked. All I figured out was that activity by my USB devices would jack up the Interruptions as seen in Process Explorer. If I wiggled my USB mouse, CPU usage jumped by 2-4%. I put in an order for a new motherboard that I'll prob keep even if the MOBO I have wasn't the problem since it has a few features I like, but I'd like to know what you guys think about two things:

1) Think there's something I'm missing in terms of preventig the interruptions?
2) Is there an acceptable level of interruptions (in terms of CPU usage)?

My specs are as follows:
Phenom II x4 945 @ 3.33ghz
6850 HD 1gb
4gb DDR3 RAM
Windows 7 Home

 

[coreydmorton]

Quick solution maybe....trying disabling USB ports (through device manager). Then before restarting and re-enabling them, try things out and see if the NT kernel is still hogging your cpu.

 

[BleakCoffee]

When I disable the USB ports or simply unplug all my USB devices, the NT kernel does basically nothing (.01% according to Process Explorer vs. the 3-10 and sometimes 30% it is when I have my USB sound card, network adapter mouse, and keyboard in use). I thought working around this with PCI cards and what not instead of USB devices, but I figured it'd be the same price to buy a motherboard with an additional PCIe graphics card slot and onboard Dolby Digital Live sound capability).

 

[coreydmorton]

When I disable the USB ports or simply unplug all my USB devices, the NT kernel does basically nothing (.01% according to Process Explorer vs. the 3-10 and sometimes 30% it is when I have my USB sound card, network adapter mouse, and keyboard in use). I thought working around this with PCI cards and what not instead of USB devices, but I figured it'd be the same price to buy a motherboard with an additional PCIe graphics card slot and onboard Dolby Digital Live sound capability).

Please update your motherboard drivers/chipset to the latest, or reinstall current if they're already up to date.

 

[BleakCoffee]

I did but to no avail.