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!

Please Run the PCPitstop Full Tests, here:
http://www.pcpitstop.com
Register and create a password
Accept the ActiveX component to allow your machine to run the Full Tests
Registering and accepting the ActiveX are both SAFE and FREE.
Full Tests is the first item in the left hand column of that page.

The Full Tests take about 2-3 minutes for most machines.
Once you have your Results, please post the TechExpress Link back here into this thread for review.
TechExpress is the last item on the list in the yellow box in upper right area of any Results page.
Post the entire URL link information.


Best Regards

Sorry for the deiay. I had a few issues with the pcpitstop program. It kept on hanging on "checking disk usage - checking software configuration". I finally rebooted - and ran the program in debug mode. That seamed to work. Here is the link


http://www.pcpitstop.com/techexpress.asp?id=UHPGHWUHYDVSSQDV

thanks

I think that the problem has been solved.

I shut down the laptop - removed the battery - plugged in the A/C power - turned it back on - and the DPC's are gone! The laptop is a lot faster - the touchpad and the keyboard work again.

I have ordered a new battery and I will confirm that that is the problem.

I have noticed that in the last month or so, the battery will not hold a charge for longer than about 10 minutes - but because the computer has always been connected to AC power, this was not an issue.

Glad you got it sorted, jeopardy
I'm sorry I had such a delay on my part getting back to you.
But you've done fine on your own.

Thanks for deciding to join WTT Forums.

Best Regards,
Doug

I was repairing an Acer Aspire 3000 laptop with Windows XP SP2, and had a lots of problem with the overall slow processing. At first I though it was a malware or a virus so I ran the usual programs to get rid of them in the Administrator Safe Mode section. After that i though it was the System.exe process that was corrupt or something.

After reading the post, I tried to run the laptop without battery and it worked. The touchpad is very fast now and the Keyboard works. That will teach me to check the battery first before doing any repair with a laptop.

Hope it help.
Thx for the posts.

Hi Apocalypse,
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

Jeapardy and Others: THANKS!!!

I also have an Acer Aspire 3000. Exactly the same symptoms. I have been trying to figure this out for months. I read this messages and took out the battery. Eureka!

I ordered a new battery and tried it tonight. All is good. THANKS AGAIN!

Hi havingfun,
Welcome to the WTT forums.
It was good to hear that the battery removal tip worked for you.
It's surprising how often this tip seems to do the do the job.
Regards
paws

I see the comments on batteries fixing the Deferred Procedure Calls issue. I'd like to suggest another thought - it may have been the heat from the batteries affecting the GPU causing it to go into slowdown mode. Here is what happened to me.

I am running a Dell laptop XPS M1210 with a NVDIA GO GPU. In monitoring the system during video game play, I also noticed that when the system would dog down the DPC would jump to a high percentage of the CPU load. Couple people on other forums mentioned heat related issues which got me thinking about the heat output of my GPU. In the NVIDIA Control Panel there is a panel for monitoring the GPU temperature. I started watching the temp while playing the video game and sure enogh every time the system would crawl to a stop the GPU temp rose into the upper 90's right along with the DPC spike. I THEN Noticed that the NVIDIA GPU has a option called "Notify me if the GPU temperature exceeds the slowdown threshold". That's what is going on and it explains why it only happens during video games. The GPU is getting too hot and the system is going into slowdown mode to reduce load on the GPU and thus a hugh spike in DEFERRED PROCEDURE CALLS - as in deferred till the GPU can cool down.

So here is how I fixed it. The GPU fan intake is on the bottom of my laptop with the exhaust on the side. I guessed that the GPU and GPU exhaust fins were coated in dust reducing heat transfer and causing overheating. So I took a compressed air can and blasted both the intake and outtake with compressed air shots. Sure enough, big dust cloud beltches out. I do that a few more times.
I restart computer and run the video game from beginning to end with NO slowdowns. As I monitor the GPU temperature is stays at 81-83 degrees. Problem solved. Clean those GPU chips.

In hindsight I had seen this once before without the DPC clue. A desktop my son-inlaw inherited would suddenly shut down. When I opened it up the GPU fan was clogged with cat hair. Clogged so much that the fan was barley turning. Blasted it all out and computer worked fine.

Hope this helps others. This was a very hard problem to figure out. I was convinced that some OS setting had changed in the computer. All the time it was just dirty hardware going into slowdown mode to shed heat.

followthebits

I stumbled unto this forum after looking everywhere to find out why an acer aspire 1640z was giving me 100% cpu usage after being restored to factury defaults. I went through countless solutions trying to fix this solution and never thought that removing the battery will cause the cpu to come back to normal. I registered to this site to say thank you for your posts and that am a new member from now on .. lol... they always say back to the basics.. thanks again.

Hi followthebits,
Thanks for taking the time to give us the benefit of your experience with dust build up.
Its tips like this that makes this forum such a great source of help for countless folks from many different parts of the world.
Thanks for your contribution.
Regards
paws

Hi kend31 and welcome to the WTT forum,

Thanks for taking the time to give us your feedback,
There's plenty of good information around on the forum here so take a moment to check around.
Its good that you found the tips useful and great that your machine is now back on top form again
Regards
paws

Oh wow, friend of mine is having this problem with an acer laptop, and I found this on google! Hopefully some of these tips apply to her.

Hi Bluedreams, and welcome to the WTT forums

I hope some of the information here will be of use to your friend, but if she needs more advice or information then she can open a new topic and one of the members/volunteers here will be pleased to help.
Regards
paws