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4 Answers 4

If you can handle low-level system tools;

Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA)


After you learn how to use xperf; check out;

The DPC/ISR Action

The DPC/ISR action produces a text report that summarizes the various metrics regarding DPCs and ISRs. The usage for this action is:

Copy Code -a dpcisr [-dpc -isr -summary -interval [n] -bucket [n] -range T1 T2 ]




Show statistics for DPC only


Show statistics for ISR only


Show summary report

interval [dt]

Show usage report for intervals of dt, default is 1 second

bucket [dt]

Show histogram for intervals of dt, default is 2 seconds

range T1 T2

Show delays between T1 and T2

If no data type is specified, default is to show report for both DPC

and ISR. If no report type is specified, default is to print all three kinds of report.

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Here's the best article I've found on how to do this, with tutorials, screenshots, and download links to the relevant tools:


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After digging through the documentation (based on the other answers here), this is the process I ended up using:

  1. Start xperf tracing

    xperf -on base+interrupt

    Note, you will need to close Process Monitor or any other app which uses ETW or you will get the following error: xperf: error: NT Kernel Logger: Cannot create a file when that file already exists. (0xb7).

  2. Save the trace log

    xperf -d interrupt_trace.etl
  3. Open the trace in Windows Performance Analyzer (part of Windows Performance Toolkit); some places mention using xperfview instead.

  4. Expand Computation -> CPU Usage -> DPC and ISR Usage by Module, Stack, right-click and add graph to analysis view

    enter image description here

  5. This pointed right to the driver in question. In this case, HDAudBus.sys is using a constant 10.82% of my cpu via interrupts, which is exactly what Process Explorer was showing me.

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Have a look at the Windows Process Explorer:


That should help.

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Process Explorer shows how much processor time is spent serving interrupts, but it doesn't, as far as I can tell, provide a way of determining what is causing the interrupts. –  jlupolt Jan 19 '10 at 18:23

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