High kernel usage (after upgrade) [possibly DPC caused]

Hello everyone,

I'd like to request some help troubleshooting this bothersome issue of mine. In fact it has been happening for months now. I've even asked about on Superuser under topic "High kernel usage in Windows 10 (after upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10)".

My Windows version is: 10.0.19044.1889 (21H2)

To eat the humble pie from the start, I still haven't got to the point where I have fully try to disable all services and so on (do the clean start), but I'm definitely going to do so very soon.

To include some symptoms, I'd like to show some screenshots from LatencyMon:


The reason I named the thread high kernel:


The interesting thing is that whenever I tried to pinpoint a driver causing high DPC / ISR, every time I ended up with a different one.

The system is normally swift after start but overtime the performance degrades. There is simply (or at least how I understand it) too little processing power left for user-space with all the kernel times going on (since something like ISR / DPC has higher priority in execution than user-space). The kernel times from the beginning are about 15-30% and later (after several hours) these numbers are higher (20-60%) as you can see here:


What I usually do is log out and log in which restores the swiftness (almost like after reboot).

Basically how this started is that I updated my Windows 7 to Windows 10 back in the February and from the start it was a s***show. Even the first issue was curious, when Windows 10 ignored GeForce drivers and started to use TeamViewer display driver. This left me with feeling there will be many obstacles ahead. Also using Iobit Driver Updater back when I was at Windows 7 was probably not a good idea.

But the stay at the topic given, I did an investigation (or at least tried) a few days ago when I recorded ETL using Windows Performance Recorder and then had a look with Windows Performance Analyzer. I did it at time when kernel usage was as high as 80% (the screenshot above) so it may yield some insights give that somebody could have a look at it. Here is a snippet (probably not much telling):


Other thing to note, I have ESET Internet Security installed and I've seen people putting blame on it. My personal opinion is that there are leftovers from the Windows 7 (some drivers obviously) which are misbehaving. I am considering a "repair installation" in hope that it could somehow help.

What I've done in the past few months was trying to reinstall some of the drivers. For example I completely removed GPU drivers using DDU and if I correctly remember I also removed ESET using their special uninstaller (although I've seen in these forums that one should not be used).

I also did run DISM, SFC, chkdsk on multiple occasions.

Interesting note: I normally don't have BSOD but today I had one. With ndis.sys. Not sure if it's related. It was DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL.
Note no. 2: I also have another Windows 10 installation (which is basically almost bare one, I used it only for testing back when I was at Windows 7 to see if it was worth the while). Or used it for Win 10 exclusive apps. This one does not have any problems.

I also don't have so much crackling sound as many people do. When I do have them, it's at a stage when the system becomes almost unusable so I relog or reboot anyways.

Thanks to anybody in advance.

PS: Sorry for the messy information, my brain usually tends to blast at all directions. I'd gladly focus on one given aspect at a time.

The problem appears to be primarily a driver malfunction.
This is borne out by your early driver problem of "Windows ignoring GEforce drivers " and the current one of "ndis.sys "{Network Driver Interface Specification }
Firstly,check Reliability History for an entry covering the BSOD and the "view tech details " for it.
Then update all hardware drivers,either using Device Manager or manually by visiting each manufacturer's site with precise hardware details,ensuring the correct driver is obtained.
Next,run ---dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth ---and on completion,run ---sfc /scannow ---to verify clean System files.
Also give ---chkdsk c: /r ---a run and restart.
Try Windows Defender instead of ESET.

Ghot said:

@Valh4ll4


I don't know how old the Windows 7 install was, but after the upgrade, I would have just done a clean install of Windows 10,
Win 10 is too different from Win 7.

In my case, since I had a retail copy of Win 7, I could just use the Win 7 product key when I clean installed Win 10.
I haven't had any issues (except a few that I caused myself) with Windows 10, since the clean install.

IF you find the cause of your problems, it's gonna take weeks, at best.
A clean install will take 20-30 minutes.

The old installation of Win 7 was ancient ... back from 2012 when I put the first version of my PC together. I always tended to fix any issues rather than do a clean install. Between 2015 - 2018 I bought new GPU, new sticks (2x8 GB), cooler. I've been using TuneUp for years which kind of helped a little bit (besides other tools). But as the OS grew it was slower and slower. I tried to mitigate by defragmenting, I bought UltimateDefrag. When that was not enough and the system had about 40-50 GB (or at least explorer was saying that ... symlinks in WinSxS, I know I know ...) I introduced SSD back in 2020. And finally this February I decided to migrate to Windows 10. Also in hopes to shrink the OS size, which it did.

The reason I did not do and still am a bit hesitant to do a clean install is, that I've accumulated over the years apps which I even don't know how to get anymore. There has been some customization as well. Also, such a trivial thing as a slideshow of wallpaper (selective, not all in a folder) cannot be done in Windows 10 anymore. Mind if I say that I've ported Gadgets to Win 10 as well . I'm really nasty "power (ab)user" . All these things combined, just made me hesitant.

And I almost forgot, I've lost the key, it was noted in some cloud service that got killed during those 10 years.

I know that the days of this OS are probably numbered, but I plan on getting a completely new PC anyways, there I will do a clean install. This ... I've taken as an opportunity to learn something new in troubleshooting and cling a bit longer on the sentimental stuff from the past 10 years.