Acer Aspire- DPC spikes high CPU usage

Hello. I am new to this site and not very knowledgable about computers, unlike most on here, but I come to all of you for help. I have been researching this problem on my own for days now with no solid leads and I hope someone here can help me. Here is my problem: I have an Acer Aspire model 3050-1150. It has an AMD Sempron 3500+ processor, 80 gb hard drive, ATI Radeon Xpress 1100 graphics card, and I am running Windows XP SP3. The system was running fine for the longest time, but recently the DPC's have been at very high levels, as well as hardware interrupts. I do have process explorer installed, and that's how I have the little information that I'm posting. I've already tried removing my battery, cleaning out the "intake" and "exhaust" ports on the bottom and sides of the laptop with compressed air, and that did cause some dirt and dust to come out, but it has not resolved my issue. I have noticed that if I disable the wireless connection so that I am not able to connect to the internet then my system is "normal". However, when I enable the wireless connection the DPC's spike and everything slows to a crawl. I have read a few different articles and posts online, through a few google searches, and I am thinking of trying spybot, spynomore, pcpitstop, and whatever else may be recommended. I've run virus scans with Mcafee and they come back clean. I don't have any specific programs to target adware and spyware, but I believe the Mcafee scans check for those. I'm guessing that there is a hardware problem, but I can't be sure. I usually have the ac adapter hooked up and the battery plugged in, so I was thinking maybe the heat generated from that may have had an adverse affect. Thankfully there is another computer in the house for me to search for solutions on. If anyone can offer any suggestions or tips I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

Hi and welcome to What The Tech!

he system was running fine for the longest time, but recently the DPC's have been at very high levels, as well as hardware interrupts.

Have you recently installed any new software/drivers/hardware or done something else which you think may cause this to happen?

There are some basic things that I want you to check. By viewing the Event Viewer logs we could maybe find out what is wrong.

• Go to Start
• Click on Run
• In the box, type eventvwr
• Look at the System and Application log files and note any that are red
• We need to know the Event ID and Source.

In Device Manager we can find out if anything is wrong with your hardware.

• Right-click on My Computer
• Click Manage
• Now click on Device Manager
• Expand all the sections and check them for any exclamation marks. Make a note of it
• We need to know the section where the device was found and the name of the device

Please let us know.

Regards,
John.

Hello John. It looks like after removing the battery and restarting the computer a couple times the DPC's have dropped and the computer is "back to normal." I don't honestly know what happened to resolve the issue, as I had already removed the battery without any kind of effect on the system, but after cleaning the intake and exhaust openings and leaving the computer off for 24 hours I tried it one last time and it worked. I have this site bookmarked for future reference and I can't thank you enough for getting back to me. It means a lot to me to have some kind of assistance and input from someone who knows about these things. This is a great site, very informative, and I hope you keep up the good job. Take care.

Glad you were able to solve the problem and thanks a lot for telling us what solved it!