System Interrupts Causes High CPU Usage – How To Fix?

You may have noticed your system suffering from high CPU usage from a system process called System Interrupts. Here I will show how to fix System Interrupts high CPU usage.

What Are System Interrupts?

System Interrupts manages hardware and OS communication. It is like a warning signal for your system. It reports the CPU usage of all interrupts happening on the system. Interrupts can start from any hardware or software.

In simple terms, if a process or service needs urgent attention of the CPU, the CPU ‘interrupts’ all other processes that are happening at that time and shifts its attention to the important process. Once the process is complete it goes back to the other processes.

What High CPU Usage Means?

If system interrupts use high CPU resources, it means a lot of interrupts are happening that put a lot of burden on the CPU. This can cause the system to overheat.

The high CPU usage of system interrupts is because of hardware or driver issues. If there is a defective piece of hardware, it will start a lot of the processes, in turn causing many System Interrupts.

How To Fix System Interrupts High CPU Usage?

If you find System Interrupts to be using more than 20% of CPU, or it shows continuous high CPU usage for a long time, there may be some issue with some hardware connected to the system. Here I will show you how to fix system interrupts high CPU usage in Windows 10.

Caution: don’t try and disable system interrupts. This will damage your system and render it useless.

# Step 1 (Restart)

This is no joke. There are a lot of issues that a simple restart can fix. If you find that the system interrupts continuously hog your CPU usage, just save any important work you are doing and restart your PC. See if it fixes the issue.

# Step 2 (Check and Disconnect Hardware)

System interrupts are caused by hardware defaulting and causing an increase in the use of system resources. If you can’t figure out which hardware is causing the issue, you can start solving this issue by disconnecting your hardware one by one.

Open task manager from the WinX menu, which can be accessed by pressing Win + X.

• Start by disconnecting the peripherals. Remove your keyboard and mouse to see if this fixes the issue.

• If you have other devices connected like external mic or speakers, you may remove them one by one to see if they are causing this issue.

• Run the Memory Diagnostic tool to check if there is any hardware issue with the RAM chips in the system.

• Check for an issue with the Power Supply.

Once you have figured out which device is causing this issue, you can try the next steps.

# Step 3 (Update Drivers)

If you see no hardware is causing this issue, there may be a device driver misbehaving and causing System Interrupts to use high CPU resources.

You can try to fix this issue by updating your device drivers. The steps to do so are:

1. Open WinX menu by pressing Win + X or right-click on the Start button.
2. Select Device Manager.

  3. Select the hardware device that might need an update, right click on it and select Update Driver.

  4. Select ‘Search automatically’ to let Windows choose the best and latest driver available for your device.

  5. Check for an update for all the device drivers that may be connected to your system.

It seems like a tedious task but it is necessary to fix this issue.

If you recently updated a driver and then the issue popped up, you may need to roll back the driver.

# Step 4 (Rollback Drivers)

1. Open WinX menu by pressing Win + X or right-click on the Start button.
2. Select Device Manager.
3. Select the hardware device that might need an update, right-click on it and select Properties.

 4. In the Drivers tab, select Roll-back drivers.

  5. Check if the issue is solved after the device driver falls back to the previous version.

If you are on Windows 7 and updating your drivers did not work, there may be an issue with your sound effects.

# Step 5 (Disable Sound Effects)

If you are on Windows 7, this is the most likely cause for the issue.

1. Right click on the speaker icon in the system tray. Select Playback devices.
2. Double click your default playback device (speakers) to open Properties.
3. In the Enhancements tab, select ‘Disable all sound effects’.

4. Check if the System Interrupts high CPU usage went down.

If this does not solve the issue for you, you may need to update your BIOS.

# Step 6 (Update BIOS)

There are sometimes bugs within the BIOS that can cause this issue. You need to update the BIOS to solve this issue.

Follow the manufacturer’s website on the guides for updating the BIOS.

Remember that bios updates can be tricky and dangerous. Make sure to back up your system and BIOS in case something goes wrong. 

Conclusion

System Interrupts can arise from hardware or driver issues. Now you know how to fix system interrupts high CPU usage in Windows 10 using the methods given above. Comment down below if you found these steps useful and which method worked for you. You can also check out the electronic development service from here.