4

I have upgraded my computer from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10. The installation went well, no problem occurred.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H. After the install, I updated the Realtek drivers to their latest Windows 10 version.

After I started to use the new Windows 10, I experienced sudden freezes, the audio or video playback is stopped for a very short time.

I checked the driver latencies with LatencyMonitor and DPC Latency Checker.

They both showed very high values (100-200 000, even 600 0000 microseconds), and it seems that NDIS.SYS causes the problem.

As this file is network related, I tested it with another LAN card (an ASUS PCI LAN card), it has a very different driver.

Surprisingly, this LAN card also shows very high values (not as often as the Realtek).

Realtek:

Realtek latency

ASUS:

ASUS latency

What should I do now?

UPDATE

I installed Windows 10 again.

I use a torrent client (uTorrent) that is set to autostart. If I quit the client, I get normal values.

enter image description here

What parameter should I check in my torrent client to avoid the problem?

Improve this question
2

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
2

I dumped a statistic about DPCs ("C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Windows Performance Toolkit\xperf.exe" -I highCPUUsage.etl -a dpcisr > dpc.txt) and this shows 2 DPCs which are critical (over 1024µs):

Total = 19697 for module ndis.sys
Elapsed Time, >      512 usecs AND <=     1024 usecs,      1, or   0.01%
Total,                                                 19697

Total = 7174 for module tcpip.sys
Elapsed Time, >      512 usecs AND <=     1024 usecs,      1, or   0.01%

I checked the NDIS.sys call stacks and saw that 2 rd party files are involved. ipgdnd60.sys is the ASUS Gigabit network driver and vfilter.sys (VPN driver). Update both and look what happens.

Improve this answer
17
  • Thanks, I'll try that. Normally I don't use the VPN connection, so vfilter.sys shouldn't be used (if I'm correct). I'm afraid, there are no newer driver versions, but I will look for them :(
    – Nestor
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 8:27
  • I checked the drivers, there is no new version available. The ShrewSoft VPN driver (vfilter.sys) is disabled, yet I still experience DPC issues. What else can I do?
    – Nestor
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 17:27
  • remove the VPN software completely and capture a new trace (1-2 minutes)
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 18:33
  • I removed the VPN software and created a new capture: drive.google.com/file/d/0B8aAkabXOq4vV3hIcnpXQ1pQNEk/…
    – Nestor
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 19:03
  • this time the ndis.sys shows a large spike Elapsed Time, > 8192 usecs AND <= 16384 usecs. Here the ASUS driver and virtualbox driver is shown in the call stack
    – magicandre1981
    Commented Nov 26, 2015 at 20:32
1

I have identified the problem with LatencyMon software.

The NIC's RSS queue is distributed across CPU cores, but the core #0 has a lot of interrupts.

The DPC Latency spikes are gone finaly at me:

Try this PowerShell cmdlet:

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetAdapterRss -Name "*"

Output something like this:

Name : Ethernet
InterfaceDescription : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Enabled : True
NumberOfReceiveQueues : 4
Profile : NUMAstatic
BaseProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0:0
MaxProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0:6
MaxProcessors : 4
RssProcessorArray: [Group:Number/NUMA Distance] : 0:0/0 0:2/0 0:4/0 0:6/0
IndirectionTable: [Group:Number]

Then set the NIC's profile to "Closest":
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Set-NetAdapterRss -Name "Ethernet" -Profile Closest

List again:
PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> Get-NetAdapterRss -Name "*"

Name : Ethernet
InterfaceDescription : Realtek PCIe GBE Family Controller
Enabled : True
NumberOfReceiveQueues : 4
Profile : Closest
BaseProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0:0
MaxProcessor: [Group:Number] : 0:6
MaxProcessors : 4
RssProcessorArray: [Group:Number/NUMA Distance] : 0:0/0 0:2/0 0:4/0 0:6/0
IndirectionTable: [Group:Number]

Some resource for this topic:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/netadapter/get-netadapterrss?view=windowsserver2022-ps

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/netadapter/set-netadapterrss?view=windowsserver2022-ps

Maybe worth trying to assign each RSS queue to other cores than 0 with NUMAstatic but I did not try it because my problem is resolved.

Improve this answer
2
  • 1
    As it’s currently written, your answer is unclear. Please edit to add additional details that will help others understand how this addresses the question asked. You can find more information on how to write good answers in the help center.
    – Community Bot
    Commented Jan 12, 2022 at 22:30
  • This tweak helped a bunch on an Intel system; it doesn't seem to do anything on an AMD PC. Thank you.
    – Zdenek
    Commented Jul 9, 2022 at 19:02
0

I also had some issues with the ndis.sys. I've tried a lot of solutions and so far none of then really helped me, but recently i managed to fix the problem with the following configurations:

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .