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I have a Windows 7 64 bit PC that I've started having a strange issue with. Every so often my computer "freezes" for a second or two; any audio will be distorted for those couple seconds and video will freeze.

I think I've narrowed down the problem to correlate with some events I see in the event log around the time I notice the issue. It has happened twice today so far:

Information 8/9/2013 9:42:34 AM Service Control Manager 7036    None
Information 8/9/2013 9:42:19 AM Service Control Manager 7036    None
Information 8/9/2013 9:42:19 AM Service Control Manager 7036    None
Information 8/9/2013 10:59:29 AM    Service Control Manager 7036    None
Information 8/9/2013 10:59:29 AM    Service Control Manager 7036    None

These are the services that the events say are starting:

  1. The Volume Shadow Copy service entered the running state.
  2. The Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider service entered the running state.
  3. The Application Information service entered the running state.

From my research online, it doesn't look like this is something I want to disable. Is there some way to change when it starts or troubleshoot why it is locking my PC?

Update #1 - Ran a scheduled check disk.. didn't find anything major.

I ran DPC Latency Checker and waited for the issue to happen again. Again, the same two shadow copy services started running and it went crazy:

DPC Latency Checker window during the issue

Update #2 - I followed the guide suggested by @magicandre1981 in the comments. I couldn't find the "DPC CPU Usage" or "Interrupt CPU Usage" graphs.. so I used the DPC Timeline by Module, Function graph.

Windows Performance Analyzer

Looks like this points to something plugged in via USB?

Update #3 - I'm pretty sure the VSS service is being started by CrashPlan. It was actually running every 15 minutes or so. I've disabled the "Back up open files" option to see if that fixes my issue. However, that still doesn't explain why the VSS service is causing all these DPC latency issues?

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  • Have you done a disk check recently? How about monitoring with what's going on via Procmon or alike?
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Aug 9, 2013 at 17:37
  • Try running a full disk defrag if you have a logical drive and see if the problem persists.
    – user201262
    Commented Aug 9, 2013 at 17:58
  • looks like get a DPC/ISR spike. capture a xperf trace and upload this file: msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=140263
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Aug 9, 2013 at 18:00
  • dump the ETL into the DPC summary text, like I've explained it. If you still can't read it correctly, zip and upload the ETL file.
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Aug 10, 2013 at 5:51

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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The root cause:

  1. Every 15 minutes, CrashPlan was starting a local backup
  2. This started the Shadow Copy services
  3. Shadow Copy was causing the audio/video stutters

A workaround:

In CrashPlan settings, go to the Backup tab and Configure the advanced settings so that "Back up open files" is unchecked.

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  • Interesting, I have run into this same problem as of late. As soon as the Shadow Copy services start, my computer "pauses" for a split second. Although it might not be directly related, I also have CrashPlan installed with the default settings AND I am nearly out of space on my OS drive. I do have reported disk errors, however I am not sure if they are false readings due to the above, or are true. Either way I'm replacing the drive...
    – canadmos
    Commented Jan 18, 2015 at 2:49

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