Brand new m15x stuck at 50% busy

My brand new m15x is stuck at 50% busy. No setting change that I have found fix the problem. I have seen the CPU go back to normal, but it only lasts a few seconds. Task manager can't see a busy process, even with "Processes From All Users".

Looks like an interrupt problem.

Anybody know how to see if the problem is "kernel mode" or an interrupt?

Anybody else seen this problem?

Just cleared itself for a few seconds, and now it's back.
Hard Drive is not busy while this is happening.
"System" is showing a 11-21% busy all the time in the process list.

btw - I turned off Indexing for the hard drive.

Thanks,
windy

 

Hi windy
quick question. have you loaded msn messenger by any chance.
when this loads on my old system both cores are at 100% and the cpu is at roughly 90% this computer has 1.7 processor with 2gb ram
once everything has loaded its the same as yours above with 50% busy.
i didnt load msn on my ex m15x for this reason so cant say if that is defanately the problem.

anyone else help windy out.

congratulations on your new m15

 

It's possible it could be windows update or if you've got Turbo memory your machine could be sorting that out...

Might be worth stripping it and reloading it from scratch, that way you know what's on and running?

OB

 

OB is right about the Turbo Memory. Expect that your computer will act wonky for the first two to three days of owning it, because Turbo Memory needs to learn about your computer. I used to have failed shutdowns and weirdo performance those first few days until it resolved itself.

That said, I can't remember if I had constant 50% usage during that time (though constant 50% implies a single-threaded, i.e. simple, task which is running on full, since this is a dualcore processor)

 

Uninstalled Live Messenger. No change.
Turbo Memory? Yep. Got that. Anybody got a pointer to a description of why this should eat the processor for a Few Days????!!!!!! That seems pretty extreme. What is it trying to figure out since I'm not really able to use the machine when it's loaded like this. This is a dual processor CPU. Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz.

I'll do some searching for Turbo Memory articles.

- ww

 

I may be wrong about this, so someone correct me if I am.

But, my understanding of the Turbo Cache Memory is that it essentially facilitates Vista's Ready-Boost feature that normally utilized a thumb-drive. Ready-Boost allows you to dedicate a portion of memory (either a fast thumb drive or your Turbo Cache memory) for caching of commonly used files and programs from your hard-drive. This way, they are resident in the memory, and faster to access than directly from the Hard Drive.

I believe this all works in conjunction with the SuperFetch caching feature of Vista, which tries to intelligently shove your most commonly used programs into the cache space for faster access. Here's the problem - if your most commonly used programs are very large (like games and all their associated libraries), this can lead to the hard-drive working constantly to transfer massive amounts of data to the cache. With the drive always spinning for the transfers, system speed gets slowed way down.

Maybe this isn't what's going on with yours - but I have always disabled SuperFetch from Vista to eliminate the problem of my Hard-Drive working overtime. This has helped tremendously with overall system performance on my Dell Latitude D830.

Here's a link about how to disable (and re-enable if you want to later) SuperFetch, to see if that helps:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-disable-superfetch-on-windows-vista/

 

superfetch in and of itself though isn't CPU demanding, so the problem here is probably just the Turbo Memory, not superfetch. As I say give the machine a couple days to sort itself out. Once Turbo Memory "graduates" then it will do its job diligently and you won't have any more issues.

I would begin to suspect another cause however if the problem lasts you through the weekend (i.e. by monday).

 

This article
http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/archive/2007/03/29/windows-vista-superfetch-readyboost.aspx
indicates that
(1) Superfetch might cause some HD activity at odd times, but not CPU usage.
(2) ReadyBoost [Turbo boost] - should be 1:1 with RAM up to 4GB. But Alienware only provides up to 1GB of turbo boost memory with the m15x, which does not follow the guidelines. But, also that a system with 4GB should not benefit very much from ReadyBoost.

((There after running full blast on one of it's processors for 1/2 an hour, my system has just calmed down.)))

Here are things that it is not:
(1) Nero Scout - I uninstalled Nero Essentials 7 - which has an Old Scout which cannot be easily disabled. Also, The Options Menu for Nero Scout would not appear on a right click.
((There my system goes again... 50% loaded about 1 minute after it slowed down...))
(2) Virtual CD - I thought perhaps the drivers were messing up, even tho it works fine on my other Vista x64 system. Apparently not the case.
((Calmed down again))
(3) Windows Live Toolbar - installed by Alienware. I don't need that since I use Firefox and generally don't want "Tool bars" on my system since I consider them akin to MalWare.
(4)AVG V8 Free - Link or Resident Shield scanners - Link scanner causes Firefox to crash so I disable it and Resident Shield being disabled does not stop the CPU load. None of these cause any problems on my other Vista system.


I'd love to turn off the ReadyBoost - Intel Turbo thingy in my system to see if that's the problem, but I don't know how. Anybody know how to turn that off??


- thanks, Windy

 

you have to DL the turbo memory drivers from intel's website. My computer, for example, came with the drivers but not the control panel GUI to control them. yours may have it in the control panel, but it seems like it isn't.

 

Well, you can try this:

1) Start Button, Control Panel
2) Click on "Performance Information and Tools" (if it doesn't appear on the main Control Panel screen, type "Performance" into the search dialog at the top-right)

3) On the navigation panel on the left edge, click on "Advanced Tools"
4) There should be a "Configure my ReadyBoost Device" option, if ReadyBoost is operating. Click it.
5) There should be an option, "Do not use this device".

 

interesting, but I clicked mine and nothing popped up (again because I think the drivers didn't get their GUI installed with them). If he doesn't have the intel option in the control panel then I doubt he will be able to do this (but thanks for telling us)

 

Strange. Do you have the TurboCache Memory in yours? Or a thumb-drive running in Ready-boost? Maybe it only shows up in the control panel if you're using a ReadyBoost device. (It doesn't show up in mine, as I have nothing attached currently)

Or not.

 

nah, I know I have Turbo Mem -- drivers appear in device manager, plus I've seen the actual thing itself when I open up my laptop. I'm just pretty sure the drivers I got were missing the GUI control panel, and since I haven't needed to change any turbo mem settings I haven't bothered to dl it yet.

 

OK, then. Well, Windy - I'm out of ideas! Sorry, hope you work it out. Maybe it's true that your system just needs to settle into a groove for a few days, and then it'll be fine.

 

well I mean the intel drivers are easily downloaded from their website if windy wants to turn it off. As I say, I'm just too lazy to do it myself because I don't want to turn it off.

 

The Intel Turbo Control app was under Start>>Programs>>Intel Turbo Memory.

Disabling it had no effect on the CPU busy condition.

Acts like it's computing 1000000 factorial. HD is completely quiet.

 

did you restart the computer after changing it?

 

I've identified a program which will help find kernel mode programs that are causing the CPU to be busy.
http://blogs.msdn.com/spatdsg/archive/2007/11/12/High-CPU-utilization_2E002E00_-oh-my_2E00_.aspx
download it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloadS/...76-13c5-4e0e-b800-53dc1b84a94c&displaylang=en

and find it in Program Files\Resource Kit\qslice.exe

My system is quiet now so I can't see what is causing the CPU load.

 

so it stopped? then it probably was intel turbo memory

 

Nope. Not the turbo memory. Turned it off and rebooted. No change, so turned it back on.

Still running 50% busy, but not all the time. Takes a break now and then. Qslice shows "System Process" in kernel mode as the culprit. Which is hardly very useful. It's odd that when it's not busy qslice shows System Process 100% busy, which means that it's the Idle process. When system is 50% busy the times in qslice don't add up to 100%. Now isn't that odd?? Some something is escaping qslice timing.

No response from AW support either.

 

hmm, this is strange. are you sure that it is even doing anything during the 50%? like, I mean, task manager may report 50% usage, but maybe there's just a driver issue that makes the PC detect things incorrectly. if you can't really tell then you could try running a CPU benchmarking program like super pi both when the CPU is 50% busy and when it's not. if the results are the same, then this just seems like a driver issue.

 

I'm not meaning to imply that you don't already know this but, isn't there s feature of Vista that tells you what each "System Process" is actually doing?

I'm sure i read about something like that although it might be only on Vista Ultimate...

Just my 2p

OB

 

Oddle-Bear: I'm not aware of any special feature of Vista or Vista Ultimate regarding what each System Process is doing. As I said, I'm using QuickSlice and Task Manager - in All Processes mode.

BTW, My system has calmed down today. Starting this morning it was running full blast on CPU0, as usual, but sometime in the afternoon about 4pm CPU0 stopped running and looked normal. Since then, in the last 3 hours, I've noticed one brief period where CPU0 was hot and heavy, but otherwise it looks normal, both while I'm reading web pages and while I'm just sitting here.

I'm very pleased with the onboard cooling. This maxed out machine has kept itself very reasonably cool for burning a steady 40 watts. I have a "KillaWatt" meter on it so I know what it's burning. The underside, while warm is not uncomfortably hot and the area to the right of the pad is warm, but not hot.

Stealth mode is enabled: ThermoFan reports: Temps are CPU:59, System: 50, VGA Skin: 58, VGA Int:50. fan1: 0, fan2: 3150.

Seems odd to find this under "Keyboard Manager". but I did manage to find it.

My old DELL Inspiron 8500 circa 2003- 1GB memory - runs so hot that I have to use a cooler or it will self-destruct. Finally a laptop hat I can use for extended periods without a cooler.

I have hopes that the CPU Busy problem has gone away. But I won't be convinced for several more days of quiet operation.
- windy

 

Turns out that I spoke too soon about the system calming down. It did seem to take longer breaks from being busy, but still had long periods of several hours racing with CPU0 full on.

Spent 4 hours - yes I'm not exaggerating - with Alienware support while we Recovered the OS [ not Respawn but Recover] and then diagnosed it via Go2 remote access.

They are replacing the CPU and the CPU Heatsink.

I wish us luck, but frankly I'm skeptical. But this is the nicest Support call that I've had in years. They are well trained and responsive. They appreciated all the work we had done and my documenting of the problem in my blog.

So now I'm respawning so I can use the system for the week or so that it takes to get the new part and get the tech here to replace it.

I'll be back here to let you know how it comes out.

- windy

 

That's cool, seems you got lucky with the person you spoke to eh?

I hope it works out for you, seems like it's a small problem with heat if they are replacing the heat-sink's... personally i don't understand how this would create 50% loading all of the time but... Heat build up maybe?

Please keep us informed?

Good luck

OB

 

Latest news is that the m15x is going back to the factory. Using Xperf - a MStool for tracing kernel mode activity - the culprit was some hardware tossing interrupts to acpi.sys, which was taking about 60,000 interrupts per second. If I understand correctly, acpi.sys is the driver for processor and power control. So looks like something is wrong with the motherboard. So, I requested that the machine go back to the factory for complete analysis and repair. At least now we know about a tool to trace such obscure failures.

- w