Hal.dll high interrupts CPU usage

Hi,

I recently noticed high CPU usage from NT system and kernel which was affecting my performance, noticeably when gaming. After doing a performance analysis, I found this in interrupts (attached screenshot)

After looking around, I'm still not sure of the cause as my PC is fairly new and was wondering if anyone could help me?

Thanks.

carwiz said:

Interrupts don't really mean a lot. An interrupt is generated every time you move your mouse or press a key on the keyboard. If you look at the average duration it's .009ms or 9/1000th of a millisecond. The total accumulated over the entire period in your data amounts to 13 seconds. I don't see the period covered but that's not a lot.

It would probably be better to analyze what else is running while you're trying to play a game. Services, background programs, auto update, etc. can eat up cycles. You might try a Clean Startup and see if that improves game response. OEM bloatware and crapware are heavy burdens on a laptop. Most don't do anything that can't be done through Windows.

Forgot to mention: You don't have many specs listed but running out of memory is another bottleneck on performance.

Ah I see. I've observed my processes whilst gaming etc but why is NT kernel and system taking up 15 cpu constantly on windows task manager, more than the game itself at points. I barely run any other things when gaming just the necessities, but this seems to take up a large amount of the CPU.

carwiz said:

I can't see from here unless you run this Diagnostic Tool and upload the zip file. You could have lots of programs running unnecessarily. That's what OEMs do. :) But run the Clean Startup first. Or at least snip the screens and post them here. Especially from the Startup Tab.

Hey.

Specs : AMD A8 6600K Quad Core 3.9Ghz Processor with 4.2GHz Turbo Clocking Speeds
AMD Radeon HD8570D 8GB RAM (says 7.19 GB usable)


Startup :


The only running services I have are the ones related to AMD so don't see them being a problem.


Also, from the diagnostic tool.
Shafski.zip

Thanks so much, really do appreciate it

Oh one other thing, I've updated my profile. Apologies for the misunderstanding, I don't use a laptop anymore :) This is a problem with a computer I use now for everything, that I bought about 4 months ago.

carwiz said:

Here's a quick list (didn't have too look hard) that is probably contributing to lag on a 2-core, 4-thread processor.
These were all running while LoL was running.

Google Toolbar
Open Broadcaster
Catalyst Control Center
Super-Charger - List of startups not available.
Rainmeter
AdobeBridge
Winamp - Added

And Chrome if the browser is open while gamming.

Ah thanks. Is google toolbar a service or something? And Adobe Bridge aswell, is that service? I can't seem to find any of them as processes when I was just running the game. I've made supercharger stop running. Winamp I sometimes use to listen to music whilst gaming. CCC controls my graphics settings so I don't think I can end that (?) I've removed supercharger too as I don't need it.

carwiz said:

Google Tool Bar is a PUP. It probably installed with Chrome or some other program you downloaded. It spends a lot of time at startup uploading all the websites you've visited. It's probably listed in Chrome as a helper/extension.

Adobe Bridge is a process that comes with Adobe Creative Suite. Check the Startup Tab of the System Configuration for other entries too. (Clean Startup) It's just bloatware for CS6 file management. If you don't know what it is, you're probably not using it and it doesn't need to run at startup.

CCC is not required. It often causes BSODs. You can adjust graphic settings through the driver/display properties.

Thanks a lot for the advice. I'll stop the unecessary/unused services from startup.

I wanted to ask, is it normal for Nt Kernel & System to take up 10-15 of my CPU constantly when im gaming?