NDIS.SYS driver very high latency in Windows 10

Question

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:

ASUS:

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.

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

Solution

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.

Comments

[magicandre1981]

update the lan drivers. if you still have DPC issues, install the WPT (part of the Win10 SDK: download.microsoft.com/download/9/0/B/…), capture a xperf trace (pastebin.com/pgE11HRD) and share (OneDrive) the compressed ETL file.

[Nestor]

@magicandre1981 I have created the capture, you can check here: drive.google.com/file/d/0B8aAkabXOq4vcmhoUElFNUI4WFk/…

[Nestor]

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]

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?

[magicandre1981]

remove the VPN software completely and capture a new trace (1-2 minutes)

[Nestor]

I removed the VPN software and created a new capture: drive.google.com/file/d/0B8aAkabXOq4vV3hIcnpXQ1pQNEk/…

[magicandre1981]

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

[Nestor]

What should I do now? Should I go back to the On-board LAN?

[magicandre1981]

yes, go back to realtek and capture a new trace

[Nestor]

I have removed the ASUS card and now I have the Realtek capture: drive.google.com/file/d/0B8aAkabXOq4vUzNIOWtQeVlfZk0/…

[magicandre1981]

this time 3 dpcs from ndis.sys and tcpip.sys cause it. your realtek driver is a bit old. Try the new 10.006.1001.2015: realtek.com.tw/downloads/…

[Nestor]

Still experiencing some issues. Here is the capture after updating the driver: drive.google.com/file/d/0B8aAkabXOq4vX3psZm5xUXhoQlk/…

[magicandre1981]

still the same (some small DPCs from ndis.sys/tcpip.sys). In the realtek driver settings (device manager) activate all offloading options.

[Nestor]

They are all set to Enabled. Should I set them to Disabled?

[magicandre1981]

enabled is good. I currently have no real idea how to fix it.

[Nestor]

Should I buy a new motherboard? I really find it strange that with two different LAN cards I still experience the issue. And also very strange that with Windows 8.1 (that has a very similar driver model) I did not have the issue.

[magicandre1981]

maybe Win10 is more sensitive to the DPC issues. I only sometimes use Win10 in a VM and don't use audio in the VM.

[Nestor]

"Fortunately", Windows 10 has a feature to revert back to Windows 8.1. I did that, now I use Windows 8.1 with driver version 8.001.0510.2013, and I don't experience any DPC issues. Too bad, that they changed only 2 thing in Windows 10: the color of the taskbar and the DPC sensitivity. Thanks for your efforts, we can't fight bad programming...

[magicandre1981]

ok. If you did the free upgrade you can later still try to update to Win10 again and look if it is better.

[Community]

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