Windows 7: iscsi making NT kernel & System working very hard

for a while now my computer has seriously slowed down when i connect my network cable in my office. the thing is my System (NT Kernel & System) eats up one of my processor cores and if i let it continue it it'll crash my computer. i have tracked it down to my MS ISCSI initiator witch if i connect to a target starts the whole slowdown. id really like to use my ISCSI drive in the future so id like to know what is it thats making my kernel go crazy like that ?? Also one vista computer (the only vista computer) in my office is getting the same problem as me.



i use a lenovo T500 laptop witch has windows 7 pro installed, my processor is a intel core 2 duo p8400 and i also have 2 GB of RAM installed.

hmm on another thread its suggested that bad drivers are the case but 2 different operating systems having the same problem almost at the same time ... well ill see if i can fix this problem when i reinstall a few programs. but still i have already reinstalled at least half of my drivers

oh well lets see if reinstalling the other half can fix the problem

Cxero, the problem with the MS software iSCSI is that it can be quite CPU intensive!
I have myself used the initiator on my laptop only for testing purposes, (ie, does it work ?)
the only way to fully remove the load from your main cpu is to purchase a specific network card with TOE (Tcp Oflload Engine) however I don't ever seem to remember coming across such a device for a laptop...

let us know how you get on with the reinstalls...

thank you for the quick reply

...but the thing is i had this setup for awhile and it didn't bother anything and now all of a sudden bang its starts like a virus with i at first believed it truly was but heck then i tracked it to the ISCSI.
and i cant really call it CPU intensive because it makes my kernel nuts.(work really hard)

and theres the thing that made me believe it as a virus .... basically 2 computers (a coworkers VISTA and my Windows 7) suddenly had the same problem, although i discovered mine a little later because my laptop only left it to one core.
also i can see why it affects both win 7 and vista because their kernel is basically the same so i want to get some clarification what exactly i causing this.
as for the re-installing, its the weekend and i cant do any testing yet because i don't have any similar setup at home.

oh one more important thing i use a NAS to Server ISCSI

couple of other things,

the software iSCSI initiator will affect your CPU and performance.
If you think about what is happening, the SCSI information is being wrapped up into a TCP/IP packet and each time a bit of data is transferred from NAS to your machine or vice versa it is being unwrapped or wrapped.

is there any specific reason for using iSCSI in your setup ?
I only ask as any speed benefits you may be gaining by presenting volumes in this method could very well be costing more to your environment in used CPU cycles.

modern NAS boxes are pretty cool in they give you these features like fileserver, SMB, FTP...you could achieve what you need to achieve using these features.

Also something else that springs to mind, as you said other machines in the network have similar problems, have you checked the health of your drives in the NAS ?

failing all of those your virus/malware thoughts are valid as well.

if you don't have an up to date enterprise AV/Malware you could use the many online AV/Malware scanners. I used to use Kaspersky online, but it's been offline for a month or so, I have also used
Free Online Scanner - Online Virus Scanner | F-Secure

you could just run it on your machine to start to see whether anything untoward is happening. and then blitz the whole network if you find something....

oh man sorry for being and idiot and forgetting to list all that is happening when i get this problem and also thank you for helping me with this problem anta.

i've got a iscsi setup in my office to do backup operation on to a NAS, including mine there are 10 computer connected to the service, theres a vista computer, a Windows 7 computer and 8 other computers that are running win XP PRO. The XP computers (2 laptops and 6 desktops) don't have any problems with the ISCSI (although win XP didn't have the ISCSi initiator installed as default either so that's another piece of a puzzle that i could try out)....
although yes the CPU will process data related to network but the biggest nuisance with this problem is that when i log on to my target(and usually make it an autoconnect target as well) my 1 core gets eaten up by kernel and it doesn't matter if i disconnect my target or network cable because the problem remains till next (un)wanted restart. (i watched my mini crash dump file and saw that kernel had some problems with symbols???)
anyway thank you again anta

on a couple of machines that don't have the problem can you check the version of initiator in use? also check the versions on both vista and Windows 7

also is there anything particular (different from the winxp machines) about the 2 machines that are problematic? apart of course the OS...

again a quick/full scan on the AV/AMalware on at least one of them, wouldn't do any harm.

to clarify my problem ill do a step by step post (i only hope that i remember to write it all and precise without any misunderstanding)
1. i have had the ISCSI initiator running for about 2 months on 10 computers with a NAS as server all working smoothly.
2. now since the start of last week 2 computers (Windows 7 and vista) get their kernel go nuts (as in uselessly using the processor at full power) upon connecting to a iscsi target
3. the problem persists upon disconnecting
4. if computer will not be restarted it will crash (this is the mini dump file if your interested: Download 012111-24772-01.rar, upload your files and earn money.)(just to be safe scan it first before opening, tho i doubt it will carry any virus)

this is about it on the problem.
i have scanned the vista system with F-Secure and my own with avira
and apparently i cant install the iscsi initiator on my win 7 so yes i guess that the vista/7 iscsi initiator is different from the downloadable version (2.8)
but still the problem is recent and i cant seem to find it

.... but i found some interesting as i connected to a different target (last one was shared disk) and well im able to write this post and not have a crash or slowdown so i think that the problem is not with the Windows 7 or vista iscsi initiators but with the server side lun well ill go and fix it and see if that gets it going any better

You might want to try this hotfix:
"Stop 0x000000D1" error after you enable an iSCSI Initiator data digest setting that uses CRC or that uses checksum in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7

I think there's a package for Vista aswell...