Running 4GB -> High CPU Usage When Idle

[TSi.fi]

I've been running the Black Ops motherboard without any bigger problems for the last month or so. Now however as I install 4GB of memory, the idle CPU usage goes up to around 40%, and the task manager doesn't even show the process that's hogging up the CPU usage.
I am using the G30 bios and x64 Vista Ultimate, and I'm just curious if any of you guys have encountered similar problems.

[Xello]

Hi there, what you want to do is download + install Process Explorer:

http://download.sysinternals.com/Files/ProcessExplorer.zip

It's a more comprehensive version of the task manager and it will show you certain processes that the task manager won't. If there's something somewhere eating up your cpu this will show you it :)

[TSi.fi]

Ah...Thanks for the link. The process explorer shows that hardware interrupts are chewing up around 30% of the CPU time. Any suggestions on how to fix this?

[HDCHOPPER]

windows XP :D

[TSi.fi]

Well I've had several Vista x64 based systems and this is the first one that has this problem....;) And 64-bit XP....No thanks...:D

PS. I've rolled back to the P05 Bios and the same issue persists...

[negev]

You could try Server 2008 instead of Vista, IMO it's much better, faster and is the same kernel without all the fluff. I run Server 2008 64bit with 4gb, no problems at all. All vista64 programs and drivers work with it.

http://blogs.msdn.com/vijaysk/archive/2008/02/11/using-windows-server-2008-as-a-super-desktop-os.aspx

[Xello]

Hardware Interrupts are what i suspected, first things to check are your 2 Ethernet ports:

Right click Computer and click Manage. Now on the left click Device Manager. On the right, click the [+] beside Network Adapters, and you should see Broadcom Netlink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet and Broadcom Netlink (TM) Gigabit Ethernet #2. If you're using one of these, disable the one you're not using (most likely #2) - if you're not using any, disable them both.

See if that does anything :)

P.s this won't be a bios issue, you should reflash to G30.

[TSi.fi]

Disabling the unused nic solved the problem. I just find it funny that I have to turn off features off the motherboard for 4GB to work. :)

Thanks for your help Xello... :)

[Xello]

For some reason it's a bug when you have it enabled and it's not being used. If you wanted to use it, just enable it and plug your ethernet in. That will work fine without the high cpu usage :up: