"Deferred Procedure Calls" - bringing SO's laptop to a near halt

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:28 am

My SO has a laptop that is running *very* slowly, even when he has hardly anything open. We have done all of the usual AV and Spyware checks, and they've come up totally clean.

Then, last night I suggested he download Sysinternals Process Explorer which was recommended to me by Xandax some time ago.
Once he had installed it, he found that something named "Deferred Procedure Calls" was causing a massive drain on system resources. A Google search did not yield much information, other than informing us that the same problem has caused a lot of people out there (even some with high powered machines) to come close to the "sledgehammer treatment."
But, we still don't know exactly what "deferred system calls" does (the information we saw was written in highly technical language), and we have no idea how to resolve the problem.

I can post his system specs later if need be, but from the little I've gathered it doesn't seem to make much difference in this particular case.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Xandax · Post by **Xandax** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 9:46 am

Well, if you are using the process explorer (good

), then try seeing which files/handlers is listed under the process which hogs the ressources. It might give an indication of what the problem could be.

Also what happens if you simply kill the process? Does Windows hang/boot/run fine?

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 10:04 am

lol Xandax, thanks for the quick reply!

I'm going to need to wait for a while before answering your questions, though, because my SO is still asleep.

I'm not sure.. but I think he tried to kill the DCP last night and he wasn't actually able to. I need to confirm that with him though.

dragon wench · Post by **dragon wench** » Mon Nov 13, 2006 2:10 pm

Hmmm...
I seem to have "resolved" the problem with my very limited abilities, mostly gleaned from this forum..

I suggested to my SO that he kill "indexing Service for fast file searching" and "Compress drive to save disc space." Once he did that, the DPC problem cleared.
I also recommended Tweak Now Reg cleaner (which elimated over 50 items and Ram Idle Pro (also by Tweak Now). Process Explorer was indicating there was a large draw from "System Idle Processes" as well, and the latter gadget appears to have helped greatly.

Apparently it is running much better now..so we shall see..
Still curious about what DPC actually is though...