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I have a problem with Windows 10 that I have not been able to solve after countless of hours that I've spent searching for the solution. I have found some strange things so far that might help to find the solution though.

My computer is self-built. It has the following parts:

  • Asus Z-97P Motherboard
  • Intel Core i5-4670K
  • Nvidia GTX 970
  • 4x4gb Kingston HyperX Ram
  • 240 gb Kingston SSD + 2 Hard drives
  • 620 Watt Power Supply

So the problem is that in Windows 10 I have almost 100% while idle on desktop. The culprit according to resource monitor is System and System interrupts. What I have tried to get rid of the problem:

  • BIOS update
  • Install all drivers from Asus
  • Windows update
  • Remove all USB hardware
  • Remove extra hard drives
  • Reinstall Clean Windows 10
  • Disable Windows Update with Gpedit

Nothing seems to work. Sometimes my computer starts and behaves normally, CPU usage 0-5 % idle. Usually not. But here is the interesting part: If my CPU usage is at 100% idle, I can make a temporary fix by putting my computer to SLEEP mode and turn it on again. Then the CPU usage drops back to normal.

Please if you have any suggestions, I am willing to try them. Also if I need to provide any additional information I'll be happy to do so.

Edit: Disabling Diagnostic Policy Service from Services.msc brought CPU Usage down a bit.

jte
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    From an admin prompt run: wpr.exe -start GeneralProfile, Then reproduce the issue, then run wpr.exe -stop C:\gp.etl Maybe you can zip and share this etl file. If you want to try and understand it, from the MS store, download and install Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA). I wouldn't;t suggest more than a minute of capture. Also, the less that is running in the trace (closing processes, stopping services, etc), the smaller the trace and it will rule out more. – HelpingHand May 10 '20 at 15:20
  • Alright. I did approximately a minute of capture. Here is the etl file: https://we.tl/t-713hKIByw0 – jte May 10 '20 at 15:39
  • Thanks for that, while symbols download and I look into it further, can you see what happens if you: 1) Open services.msc , 2) Locate the following 3 services: Diagnostic Policy Service, Diagnostic Service Host and Diagnostic System Host 3). For each service, change the startup to Disabled then stop them. – HelpingHand May 10 '20 at 16:13
  • I had Diagnostic Service Host and System Host already disabled but Policy Service was running. I shut it down while system was on and CPU usage dropped immediately a bit, now sitting around 50% idle. I disabled the startup on it also and rebooted. It's at 50 % again now so it's a step in the right direction! – jte May 10 '20 at 16:24
  • You can try and disable Gaming mode from Settings / Gaming. Your CPU will thank you... –  May 10 '20 at 16:30
  • The work that is doing seems to be in response to the underlying issue so that makes some sense. The underlying CPU is coming from the System process and the work the ACPI.sys driver is doing - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/kernel/acpi-driver . It looks a lot like the 2 answers from MagicAndre 1981 - https://superuser.com/questions/527401/troubleshoot-high-cpu-usage-by-the-system-process and https://superuser.com/questions/1135273/high-cpu-usage-by-system-and-system-interrupts-caused-by-acpi-sys can you have a read through of those? – HelpingHand May 10 '20 at 16:32
  • Disabling gaming mode sadly did no effect on this problem. Alright I actually had seen those posts earlier but now taking a closer look at those answers. I have reset BIOS to default settings but haven't tried to disable devices from there. Basically all the other steps I have done before. I just find it so weird that going to sleep mode and returning from that fixes the problem until the next reboot. Also thank you for taking your time with that etl file! – jte May 10 '20 at 16:48

1 Answers1

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From this stack information; stack Specifically:

|ACPI.sys!OSNotifyDeviceWake
|----ACPI.sys!ACPIWakeRemoveDevicesAndUpdate

It does feel like an issue with the power management function of a device.

Maybe first see if there are any devices in Device Manager you can do without as a test. If the issue is still present with a number of devices disabled, focus on the power saving configuration of the remaining devices.

Also see: High CPU usage by "System" and "System interrupts" (caused by ACPI.sys) for information as posted by the SuperUser legend MagicAndre1981.

HelpingHand
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  • I think I have found the culprit now. For internet I am using a ZyXEL N450 USB Adapter. Disabling the driver from device manager and rebooting brought the idle cpu usage to 0-2 %. Now obviously without it I don't have internet so I had to re-enable it and the problem came back. I tried to play with the power saving configuration for that and that didn't help. I try to install different driver versions now to see if I get it working properly. Thanks a lot for your help! – jte May 10 '20 at 17:07
  • OK, interesting, I suppose if you could connect the computer to your router with a cable and leave the USB network dongle disabled that would also confirm you're in the right area, In addition to that, as a separate test, maybe if you have another wireless adapter card/dongle you could try that. Thanks. – HelpingHand May 10 '20 at 17:16
  • After disabling fast startup from Windows power settings I no longer get any problems even with the network adapter connected. Computer feels so much faster now :) – jte May 10 '20 at 17:32
  • High interrupts usually denote a hardware-related issue. A bad driver could be the reason why you encountered this problem, but not just your device driver. You might want to update the whole bus or hub drivers too, via Device Manager. –  May 10 '20 at 18:02
  • Should it be possible to determine which interrupt is happening (like IRQxx) and which driver is taking the CPU time processing that interrupt? Is guessing by disabling devices really the only way? I am having a similar problem on Lenovo P53 and I already tried many things. The interrupt storm starts for no reason and then may end by itself or by rebooting or sleep/wake. Even if it is Acpi.sys, it is not a complete answer, IMO. – sun2sirius Jun 05 '20 at 08:17