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Greetings all...

When I enable my network adapter (SiS 900 Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter - onboard), my CPU usage shoots up to 40-50%. Disabling it returns usage back to 0%.

I generally leave it disabled especially on boot-up since it also seems to cause Windows to hang when booting occasionally.

Usage is all "Kernel Times" (red on the graph) when viewed in Task Manager and therefore, I can't seem to relate it back to any process in the Processes tab of Task Manager. For example, in the past ~6 hours, my CPU Time is allocated 5:51:33 as Idle Process, IEXPLORE.EXE 0:10:14, WINLOGON.EXE as 0:01:07, System as 00:17, CSRSS.EXE as 0:00:17, etc. Yet my CPU Usage chugs along at 40% usage!!!!

Background: I have recently moved from Toronto to London where I've switched from a cable modem to the BT Voyager 205 ADSL router. Any chance something needs uninstalling that is conflicting with my network card? I'm not positive when the problem started but I definitely didn't have this problem in Toronto.

I'm heading out to buy an PCI network card on Wednesday incase the onboard card is shot, but any other thoughts out there?

TIA!
HallMachine

Hi Hallmachine, Welcome to the PC Help Forum.

This, unfortunately is not my area of expertise but we have a great staff of tech experts who I'm confident will be able to help you with your problem.

Could you please post your PC's specs in order to help them help you?

Also, is this after a fresh Windows install or did this just start happening out of the blue?

I've got the Belarc Advistor, if I could upload or link to that it might be easier... but here goes...

Windows XP Professional SP 2
2.8Ghz P4 with hyper threading
Maxtor 80gig hard drive
512 Mb memory
MSI GeForce FX 5600 Ultra Graphics card
and of course, the network card in question

XP installed 18 months ago and relatively trouble free until something happened in the past two-three weeks. Something between moving to London (new voltage?, new frequency?, new router?, damage during travel?, ) and now has caused it to act this way. Obviously, I've been very careful with the transformer or voltage switch for input voltage, or this pc might not be here right now!

Hi Hallmachine,

There are a lot of things that could have gone wrong. Have you tried using an expansion NIC card? That's the only thing i could think of trying...like I said I'm not an expert on hardware but that might solve the problem. Luckily Network cards are some of the least expensive parts in a PC too :computer_

Thanks, I just bought a new card for a whopping ?2. Will let you know if that fixes the problem. If so, might as well be a time to upgrade to wireless then too.

I just find it strange that an onboard network adapter would act this way, but still allow the network to work. Either it should work or it should fail!

Hallmachine

Fixed. Onboard card disabled, new card enabled. Strange though, I still wonder what happened.

Well, it looks like you have a bit of a hardware problem but it looks like nothing major, you may want to get that checked out bu someone who's good with small electronics to make sure no circuits are broken.

I'm going to mark this as resolved but let us know if the problem resurges.