System Interrupts are common and are also a major part of Windows, even though they are really not a process, they still appear in the Task Manager. It is a placeholder that displays the system resources used by all hardware interrupts happening in a CPU.
The hardware Interrupts are a major part of the computer that helps to manage the numerous activities simultaneously and manage them effectively. Also, a lot of processes will be running simultaneously on the computer.
Interrupts are a method to execute important instructions first by pausing the ongoing ones, or it is a way of telling that a certain instruction is ready for execution to the computer.
They are important and a part of the Operating System and machine, but the process System Interrupts should not go beyond 2- 3% during any situation.
In the vast realm of computer diagnostics, terms like “System Interrupts” can seem puzzling to many. Although this term may appear esoteric, it’s closely related to your computer’s performance.
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Particularly, if you’ve ever noticed a spike in your CPU usage without any obvious reason, system interrupts might be the culprit. This article aims to clarify what system interrupts are and why they can cause high CPU usage.
Contents
What Are System Interrupts?
System Interrupts, at their core, are signals sent to the CPU. These interrupts alert the CPU to halt its current task and address a higher-priority task.
They serve as mechanisms that allow hardware devices and software to communicate with the CPU. Essentially, they ensure that the CPU can respond to immediate and pressing demands.
Types of Interrupts:
Broadly, there are two types of interrupts:
- Hardware Interrupts: Generated by hardware devices like keyboard, mouse, or printer to signal the CPU.
- Software Interrupts: Emanate from software (often from system calls) and are triggered by a program requiring a system function.
Why Are System Interrupts Crucial?
System interrupts act as messengers ensuring that vital tasks aren’t missed. For instance, when you press a key on your keyboard, an interrupt signals the CPU to register the keypress. Without these interrupts, real-time responses would be impossible.
Causes of High CPU Usage Due to System Interrupts:
At times, you might observe ‘System Interrupts’ consuming a significant percentage of CPU resources. Several reasons can lead to this:
- Faulty Drivers: Outdated or corrupted drivers can improperly communicate with the CPU, leading to excessive interrupts.
- Hardware Issues: Defective hardware components, especially issues with the motherboard, can result in frequent, unnecessary interrupts.
- Overheating: If your system is overheating, it might generate more interrupts as a protective measure.
- Software Conflicts: Two or more software programs conflicting with each other can cause an increase in software interrupts.
- External Devices: Sometimes, external devices connected to the system, like USB peripherals, can be the cause.
Fix: System Interrupts High CPU Usage
At any point, if the range reaches 20% and stays the same, then surely there exists a problem. The problems can be detected by tracing back to fast boot, badly configured drivers, some external devices, etc.
We have listed below a number of workarounds to solve the problem, starting from the common easy ones to more complex ones.
Solution 1: Disabling USB Root Hubs
The USB Root Hubs sound like a physical device that needs to be plugged in, but it is a software peripheral that lets you connect multiple USB peripherals to the computer. In order to share the data bus among multiple devices most of the computers have multiple USB Root Hubs.
Next, we have to find the USB root hubs that are not in use, by both Keyboard and Mouse and disable them all. After identifying the ones in use, it will be easy to disable the ones that are not in use, and maybe then the High CPU usage issue will hopefully be sorted.
Step 1: To open Run, press ‘Win+R’ and then type – “devmgmt.msc”, now press Enter.
Step 2: In the given option expand the category of “Universal Serial Bus Controllers”, now locate all the root hubs that are listed.
Step 3: Now right-click on Root hub and select ‘properties’. Once the properties window opens, click on the ‘Power’ tab and check whether your devices are attached. (If your keyboard and mouse are using the root hub it will be shown there. You can now disable the rest of them excluding the ones that are in use.)
Step 4: Identify the Root Hub in use and now disable the rest, by right-clicking on them and selecting “Disable”.
Step 5: Now reboot the system and check if the issue has been resolved, if not then simply just Revert the changes done.
Solution 2: Disabling Audio Enhancements
To improve the sound quality, few sound drivers use enhancements and if those properties are not compatible with the device then it might cause issues like the one we have now – High CPU Usage.
We can try to disable the audio enhancements and check if the CPU usage issue gets solved. As not all sound drivers have the same function hence, they might have Enhancement tabs as a sound blaster. Now we can try disabling the sound effects.
Also, few sound drivers have the “Exclusive mode” option that allows other applications to take full control of the sound card, which causes a few issues. Checking it out once wouldn’t be a problem as maybe this could solve the problem.
Step 1: Launch ‘Run’ by pressing the ‘Win+R’ key, and type “Control Panel” in the search bar to open.
Step 2: Now type ‘Sound’ in the Control panel’s search bar situated at the top right corner. After the search results arrive, click on the options of Sound.
Step 3: After the option of sound is displayed, click on the audio device that’s connected to your device. Now right-click on it and select Properties.
Step 4: Now go to the ‘Enhancements tab’ and now you can either uncheck all the enabled enhancements or simply check the “Disable all the enhancements”.
Step 5: Next go to the ‘Advance tab’ and uncheck the ‘Exclusive mode’ – that allows the applications to override the settings. Save the changes made and exit.
(If the above method doesn’t work then you can enable the options back as it was before)
Solution 3: Disabling The Wake on Magic Packet Settings
Windows has a feature where the network adapter is given the privilege of waking the PC during the transmission of data. The system refers to the data packet as “Wake on Magic Packet”, and this might cause the High CPU Usage issue as a lot of interrupts are generated and the system has to deal with them all.
So, we can try disabling this option from settings, however, if it doesn’t work you can enable it back.
Step 1: To launch the Run press “Win+R”, and now to open the Device Manager, type “devmgmt.msc” in the search bar and give enter.
Step 2: The Device Manager holds all the info of all the devices connected to the computer in categories. Now click on the Network Adapters drop-down button to view the other devices.
Step 3: Search and select the Ethernet and WiFi device, now right-click on it, and select ‘Properties’.
Step 4: Now go to the ‘Advance tab’, where a lot of options will be available. Scroll down to the end and search for the option called “Wake on Magic Packet” and on the right side will be the value – enabled, change it to disabled, now save the changes and exit.
(Restart your computer and if the issue is solved)
Solution 4: Installing Intel Rapid Storage Technology
The Intel Rapid Storage Technology is a Windows-based application, the systems like desktop, mobile, and server platforms equipped with SATA disks are provided with improved performance and reliability.
The advantages like enhanced performance and low power consumption can be obtained while using one or multiple SATA disk drivers. Also, there is an increase in protection of the data loss (that can be caused by disk failure) when using more than one disk.
When observed there were a few instances where the users observed that by installing the Intel Rapid Storage Technology module, their problems were solved. Installation is not an issue but one must be aware of the fact that it will replace the SATA Controller driver on the computer.
If one is aware of this fact and the aftereffect, then go ahead and install the module from Intel’s Official Website. After the product is successfully installed an icon appears in the taskbar.
Solution 5: Turning Off Fast Startup
The hybrid sleep modes of previous versions of Windows work similar to Window 10’s Fast Startup (also called fast boot). As it is a combination of cold shut down and the hibernate feature. When the computer is shut down, the users are logged off and all the applications are closed in a cold boot and the Windows also works the same way.
At this point, the freshly booted state (the users are logged off and all the applications are closed) is similar to the Window’s state. Also, the system sessions are running and the kernel is also loaded.
The Windows then sends a notification on the preparation of hibernation to all the device drivers and then the current system state is saved to hibernation, later the system is turned off.
Now when the system is restarted, Windows will not reload the kernel, drivers, or the system state, instead will refresh the RAM with a loaded image from the hibernation file and then navigates directly to the startup screen.
This can be one of the ways to solve the issue, as many users found the solution to the problem of High CPU usage by disabling it. As disabling it would not cause much of an issue, because it doesn’t completely shut down the system in a traditional way.
Step 1: Firstly launch the Run by pressing ‘Win+R’, now type ‘Control Panel’ in the search bar and give Enter. The Control Panel will soon appear on the screen.
Step 2: Now click on the Power options.
Step 3: After the Power options open, click on the “Choose what the Power buttons do” which will be on the left side of the screen.
Step 4: Now you can find an option that says needs administrative privileges names as “Change settings that are currently unavailable” and then click it.
Step 5: Now go to the bottom of the screen and uncheck the option that says ‘Turn of Fast Startup’, save the changes, and exit.
Step 6: And now to see if the changes really worked well to solve the issue, restart your system and check it.
Solution 6: Troubleshooting Devices and Drivers
Finally, after going through and trying out the above solutions if you still haven’t got the issue solved then you might now have to diagnose the disk/drivers to know which is causing the problem.
Interrupts are usually caused by bad drivers or devices with a few software exceptions (that are covered above).
Firstly, start by disconnecting all the external devices and moving to the internal devices, and the device drivers will be updated at each instance.
Step 1: Now start disconnecting all the external devices like Mouse, Keyboard, external Bluetooth devices, external WiFi cards, etc. In the meantime, disconnect them one by one and observe the CPU usage for a couple of minutes.
If there are no changes observed then go on disconnecting the devices until it lowers, but if it lowers down (like 2- 3%) significantly, then now you know who is causing all the trouble till now
Step 2: If no result is found by disabling the external devices then it’s time to move on to the internal devices and see if the problem exists there. Also, this step is way trickier than the previous ones, as you can’t just unplug the devices easily. As we have to disable each device from Device Manager.
Step 3: At first launch the Run by pressing ’Win+R’ and then type ‘devmgmt.msc’ and give enter to open the Device Manager. Now start targeting devices like network adapters, sound cards, other add-on cards, etc.
Step 4: Now start by disabling one by one and then observe if there is any change in the CPU usage by System Interrupts. If there are no changes observed and it stands stable at like (20-30%) then the devices that were enabled are not causing any problem.
Mainly avoid important system devices like disk drivers, display adapters, or anything that comes under computer processors or system categories.
Step 5: Next we will be updating all the device drivers present on the computer. As told before this solution is a bit trickier than the above ones also a bit time-consuming too. Sometimes the Automatic update drivers are not reliable and hence we must update the drivers manually.
There are two easy methods of doing it, firstly select a driver and update it to the latest build available and check if there are any changes, if nothing is observed then you can always undo the changes and go ahead with the previous version.
Secondly, when no changes is observed from updating the present driver, you can move on to updating the next device drivers and do the same until you find the culprit. The required drivers must be downloaded from the Manufacturer’s Website.
Now right-click on the device and select “Update Device Driver”. Next select the second option named as – “Browse My Computer for Driver Software”.
Addressing High CPU Usage from System Interrupts:
To manage high CPU usage stemming from system interrupts, consider the following steps:
- Update Drivers: Regularly update all device drivers. Manufacturers often release updates to fix bugs that may cause unnecessary interrupts.
- Check Hardware: Use diagnostic tools to check the health of your hardware components.
- Monitor Temperature: Ensure your system isn’t overheating. Clean the internal components and improve ventilation.
- Disconnect External Devices: One by one, disconnect external devices to identify any that might be causing excessive interrupts.
- System Scan: Use system diagnostic tools to identify software conflicts or other system-related issues.
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Conclusion
As observed above these were a few common solutions that most of the users found useful and got their problems solved. Sometimes, the solutions can be by disabling the unused devices that can be either external or internal devices, or by installing the required drivers or by updating the current drivers in the system.
As the improper working or extra usage of CPU by devices might cause the problems, and don’t worry these issue can be solved by carefully following the above solutions.
While system interrupts are a fundamental part of a computer’s operation, excessive CPU usage due to these interrupts can hinder performance.
By understanding what system interrupts are and the reasons they might be consuming a high percentage of your CPU, you can take informed steps to optimize your computer’s performance. Always prioritize regular system checks and updates to ensure smooth operations.
