[win7] System Interrupt CPU spikes while playing audio. - Hardware & Software

I've been having these CPU spikes for a while now, and they're finally starting to bug me but I can't seem to find the culprit. Here I've used the resource monitor to find which process is causing the CPU spike, and it seems to point to the System Interrupt process: [img_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/DBPGPCu.png[/img_thumb] I've recently found out that it only spikes while audio is playing, be it from games or music, it's only when any audio is playing is when these spikes occur; every 30 seconds or so. So, I've looked this up and apparently the common solution is to [URL="http://i.imgur.com/IQabjjU.png"]"Disable all enhancements" under the Sound playback settings.[/URL] Well, I've checked that checkbox but the problem still occurs. Anyone have any other ideas why this could be happening? Thanks in advance

Do you have a sound control panel such as realtek's one? You'll want to get rid of this as it can cause problems

OP, do you have the correct audio drivers installed? Windows comes with generic drivers for most audio chips that comply with the AC'97 and HD Audio specs, but they only provide very basic functionality and are generally buggy. You can tell if you have the generic Windows driver if you look in the device manager and see "High Definition Audio Device" under audio devices. You also could have gotten some audio drivers from WU, which could also cause problems. In either case, you should go to the OEMs website for your motherboard/machine and get the proper audio drivers. [QUOTE=djjkxbox360;44620790]Do you have a sound control panel such as realtek's one? You'll want to get rid of this as it can cause problems[/QUOTE] The Realtek control panel goes hand in hand with the driver, you really can't remove it. Even if you could, you'd lose a ton of functionality. You should expect higher CPU usage with integrated audio since the audio chip is basically a dumb ASIC with registers and is completely controlled by software on the host CPU, unlike professional sound cards that have DSPs that unburden the host CPU from sound processing. Though with integrated chips, you really shouldn't expect more than a 5% load on one core from the audio device, 100% is way excessive.

Actually, I don't even have realtek installed. Good news - I grabbed those drivers, and checked the "disable all enhancements" again and now the spikes seem to have disappeared! Well, for the most part... the realtek drivers don't seem to detect my wireless headset, so when I use the headset the spikes persist. But, when I use my speakers (which realtek does detect,) the spikes disappear. So now I just have to figure out how to get my realtek drivers to detect my headset, which I don't think should be too much of a problem. [editline]23rd April 2014[/editline] Or, maybe I can't. They're USB headphones and I'm not sure realtek can or will detect them.

[QUOTE=ief014;44625986]Or, maybe I can't. They're USB headphones and I'm not sure realtek can or will detect them.[/QUOTE] USB headsets have their own audio chip, they don't use the motherboards integrated audio and have nothing to do with it. Whatever CPU usage issue is being caused by them.