Strange problem (high cpu utilisation with M17x)

I've spent the last few days trying to figure out what was causing my PC to be so ridiculously slow it's unusable. I just figured out after another fresh install that the CPU went crazy as soon as I plugged in an ethernet cable into the machine. Even after unplugging it and disabling the adapters and the NIC, the computer is still slow as hell. CPU goes to 100% when I move my mouse and click on anything. Process Hacker tells me the processes that makes it do so are DPCs, Interrupts, as well as a few svchost processes, but overall it seems random. Most processes begin using a ton more CPU than they normally should.

Anybody has an idea of what I could try to do before I ship this cursed machine back to Dell?

 

I had a similar problem about a week after I got mine back in July. Everything I tried from reinstalling drivers to reformatting didn't work. Then I called the Dell Tech and we went through a bunch of tests then he simply told me to shutdown my m17x and remove the battery and then hold down the power button for 30 seconds. I put the battery back in and booted up and everything worked just fine. Try that and see if it helps you.

 

I did this at the same time as I was rebooting from an update for the chipset. The problem is now solved, not exactly sure which one did it. I'm browsing the web right now with the ethernet cable plugged in and cpu usage is low. Hopefully it stays that way.

 

good to know you got it fixed