Acer Laptop Aspire 3000 Series
USB Docking Station with printer, PS2 Mouse, Keyboard
Windows XP Service Pack 2

Windows Task Manager shows that the "SYSTEM" process (not the System Idle Process) is consuming 40-60% of the CPU usage.

System works GREAT in Safe Mode with Networking - both keyboards, mouse and touchpad work flawlessly. System process using less than 1%.

System is slow (High SYSTEM CPU Usage) in Normal mode. As the system boots up, within 5 seconds of receiving the "Select User" screen, the Touch Pad and Laptop Keyboard become virtually useless (accept keys only every minute or so). There does not appear to be any effect on the mouse or the keyboard that is connected to the docking station.

I have tried:
Norton Antivirus scan - in normal mode and in safe mode.
SpyBot Scan
SpyNoMore Scan

I also installed Process Explorer and detected that the DPC's are running at 20-30% (should be <1%)
I installed RATTV3 to give me some insight into the DPC bottleneck, but the program starts, creates the it will ot generate the Current.ETL file (30MB+ in about 2 minutes) - but will not generate the CSWA-Accumulator-data or report files.

There does not appear to be any problem with the software, it just will not create the report files. I have changed the RATTV3 registry files to reduce the timers to less than 1 second (from the default 3 min), but there is no effect on the performance of the program. It still runs indefinately.

I suspect a bad driver, but I do not know of what driver would have changed in the last 6 weeks. Is there any other program like RATTV3 that can breakdown the DPC's? Or another way to track down the suspect driver?

HELP!

I just registered here to say THANKS! for the advice and convey my appreciation to this forum's users.

A friend gave me his Aspire 3000 to reformat since it was still on its original system install, has been extremely draggy, and has been exhibiting some of these issues such as high CPU usage (SYSTEM process @ 50-70%) with no programs running, and intermittent, inexplicable keyboard and touchpad lockup. The computer was also freezing intermittently for no conceivable reason and the only solution to recover was to unplug the laptop and remove the battery completely, as holding down the power button did not help--just as reported here by other users.

Another symptom I noticed was having to click to "END NOW" the Power Meter process on each shutdown. This was a slight hint, but I would've never guessed that an old laptop battery would cause such havoc with the system overall.

After removing the laptop battery completely the computer has apparently completely recovered from these buggy issues and appears to be operating normally.

Thanks to all, hope this helps other users as it did me!

Hi jackassed

And

Thanks for the feedback on your problem.
Glad you could use the info and that you got your problem fixed.
Thats one of many strengths of a forum, the use of info for future readers!

Regards Abydos

Hi,

I own an Acer Aspire 1350 and share the same DPC issue, I found out it definitely is due to an overheating of some part of the machine, probabily -as someone pointed out- the graphic card and / or the battery, since all this started I had several BSOD pointing to some driver failure.

Putting an icebox at the bottom of the laptop seems to work, that's just not the kind of fixing one would think of, but at least I can carry on my homework until I could be able to replace my old Aspire.

http://forums.whatthetech.com/style_emotic...lt/pullhair.gif

OK, I've tried ALL ideas. The DPC Latency monitor is showing me alternating (on my Dell 8200) one green bar at 0.5ms and one red bar at 4ms. Randomly it will show an yellow, a very high red, or multiple red bars. I have tried shutting down all drivers and all services that I could and it persists. Removing batteries changes it but it settles back to the same pattern. I removed the mini PCI card, no change. The touch pad is disconnected because it was causing the cursor to drift but the cursor stopping (high CPU usage) was occurring prior to that so I can't stop the external Logitec mouse. Dust out - fans on full to keep temp to min, etc.

Another laptop (Averatec) was constant red bars at 4-5ms. I shut down the mini PCI card and it went to solid green bars at 0.2 ms, so I updated the driver and it is always under 1 ms now.

The RATTV3 program is running but I can't figure out how to get any information from it.

any ideas?????????????

I have one 256M and one 512M RAM cards. I guessw I will try pulling the 356M just for grins.

This post has been edited by cher: Nov 3 2008, 11:41 AM

Removing the battery fixed my Acer Aspire 5000 laptop.

I would never have guessed the link between the battery and the keyboard/mouse not working...

Excellent site.

Thanks to all those who contributed.

HiJimbooops and Welcome to the WTT forums.

That was really good news to hear that you have solved the problem with the laptop computer.

The forum is a great resource and many folks (some of whom never make a post themselves, and that is fine) often pick up a tip that proves invaluable to them or their friends.

Take a moment to have a good look around. there are plenty of friendly folk here, and lots and lots of good information.
Regards
paws

I have just suffered through my first Deferred Procedure Call issue. Symptom was the usual. There was a phantom process using up 40% of my cpu cyles in my xp pro box and not showing up in the task manager process list. I tried a full Avira virus scan to no effect. Then found this thread and downloaded Process Explorer which showed me that the problem was a DPC. On a whim, I disconnected a D-Link DPH-50U Skype usb phone adapter I had just installed, through a powered D-Link usb hub, and voila - the DPC went away. No more phantom 40% cpu use process.

Not sure if this is D-Link bad hardware or a bad D-Link driver, but I quickly found that Skype is useless (too many break-ups), anyway, so I will not use the phone adapter.

- nopcbs

I just want to say THANK YOU. I've had an Aspire 5600 that all of a sudden lost keyboard and touchpad use (and I had to rely on a USB mouse and keyboard). It happened right after a program update so I was convinced something got corrupted (but it almost acted more like a nasty virus). It was completely bogged down and had the same phantom 40-60% deferred procedure calls resource usage - no keyboard, touchpad, or wireless. I had tried everything I could think of was just about to give up and wipe the system and start fresh. I found this post and pulled out my battery. In 15 seconds the DPC's dropped to zero! and everything is back to normal. All from a dang battery!!! I must have wasted 30 hours over the course of a couple of weeks trying to find the problem (there was a lot of data on the system that I didn't want to backup while it was in that state). Again, I just wanted to say thank you, I wish I had stumbled across this much earlier.

This post has been edited by sillyrabbits: Mar 19 2009, 11:30 PM

Hi sillyrabbits and welcome to the WTT forums

Glad you got it fixed.
Its amazing how many times a "single tip" like
"try removing the battery"
does the trick!
Regards
paws

i have this kind of problems at my office, tried so many ways and failed. then i stumble to this site and voila thanks dude.. i;m registering due to this hope i'll help others like you help me

Hi vatsuko and welcome to the WTT forums

Glad you got it fixed and everything is now running OK
Its amazing how many times a "single tip" like
"try removing the battery"
does the trick!
There's counless folks who have tried practically everything else, before finding that removing the battery is the cure.
Regards
paws

Wonderful result. Had the CPU issue with the churches ACER Aspire 1640 laptop. Tried all the useual stuff and was getting very frustrated until I found this thread.

Never heard of Deferred Procedure Calls before today, but after running 'Process Explorer' it was clear that there was an issue beyond me. Removed the battery and away you go.....

Will next try the dust cleaning tip, that sounds very logical.

Pleased to have found you guys and of course I have registered from good old Coventry UK.....

Happy days

A

Hi and4545
Welcome to the WTT forums

Glad the tip worked for you too..
Coventry...just up the road from me!
Regards
paws

I started watching the temp while playing the video game and sure enough every time the system.


Regards

Aadon

____
dossier surendettement