System and System Interrupts- high cpu utilization

I have the same issue. "System" and "System interrupts" take about 30% continuous CPU on startup. I have the same rMBP as Michagibson: "Macbook Pro Retina 13" Mid 2014 i5 8Gb RAM" and I'm running Boot camp with Windows 8.1 (and Yosemite on the OS X side). Sleep/Wake workaround works. "Turn on fast startup" option didn't work for me at first (yes, I Shutdown/Powered back up - didn't use "Restart"), but I realized that I had previously disabled Hibernation in power settings.

So, if "Turn on fast startup" doesn't work for you, go to Power Options in Control Panel, next to your power plan, select "Change plan settings", "Change advanced power settings", Expand "Sleep", Expand "Allow hybrid sleep", change both "On battery" and "Plugged in" to "On".

If you're running out of space on your SSD, keep in mind that "fast startup" is basically hibernation, which creates a file that's about as big as the amount of RAM you have. In my case, hiberfil.sys is about 6.5Gb. If this is too big for you, maybe you don't want to use "fast startup" and instead use the Sleep/wake workaround.

Previously on my 2010 MacBook Pro, I created a quick .NET app that asks if it is a 'Fresh Boot'. If I chose No it did nothing, but if I chose Yes, it ran MacFan 5000 to set my fan speed in Windows.

I've done the same thing with my mid-2014 MacBook Pro, but instead of running MacFan, it now runs "C:\Apps\sysinternals\psshutdown.exe -d -t 0" which puts the notebook into sleep mode. Works good for fresh boots!

Re: Your Hibernation/Fast Startup info, did Fast Startup fix the issue with 30% CPU? In other words, when you cold boot into Windows, it's not using 30% CPU? If that is the case, I will have to try it. Currently I don't have Hibernate enabled.

Yes, when the Fast Startup option (and Hibernation) is enabled, and then I Shutdown, then boot back up, the 30% CPU used by "System" and "System interrupts" processes are gone. See the older post from "Michagibson", who describes the setting here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6598184?answerId=27121217022#27121217022

Keep in mind that even if you have Fast Startup enabled... if you "Restart" instead of "Shutdown", you'll see "System" and "System interrupts" using the high CPU again when you boot up, until you either use the Sleep/wake workaround, or Shutdown and boot back up.

My only concern now is how Fast Startup (Hibernation) affects the lifespan of the SSD, since it's doing a lot of I/O every Shutdown/boot. Boot time is extremely fast when using it though!

I am interested in your comments re the impact on SSD. I have been suffering this high CPU problem since early December, and now have Windows reporting that it has detected a hard disk problem. Repeated calls to both Apple and Microsoft help desks have been a waste of time so far. The last suggestion by Apple was to remove the bootcamp partition, and start from scratch which I did yesterday. That didn't fix the CPU issue and ahgain Windows is reporting the same hard disk problem.

One question I have though, on a Macbook Air (and Windows 7), what is the equivalent of the sleep button? I don't see one on the keyboard. Also, I don't see an option in Windows 7 (Pro) to enable and disable hibernate functions?

I actually don't know what the impact of hibernating is on the SSD over it's lifespan. There are mixed feelings online about it.

I just checked in Windows 7 and I don't see the Fast Startup option there (It's definitely in Windows 8.1), so I'm not sure if hibernating on Windows 7 will work as a workaround for the high CPU issue or not. Windows 7 definitely supports hibernation though, so you might give that a try. Found this with a quick google search: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/920730

I haven't had any reports of a hard disk problem, so I can't really help much with that. That is probably a separate, unrelated issue.

As for the Sleep/wake workaround, It is most likely the power button, but you need to map the Power button to cause it to Sleep. In Windows 7, you can do this by going to Control Panel -> Search for "power" -> Power Options -> "Choose what the power buttons do" -> Set "When I press the power button" to Sleep. Of course, if you don't want the power button to sleep, then don't do that. The other option is to set closing the lid of your Macbook Air to cause it to sleep (This option is in the same power options window), then you could just boot up, close the lid to have it sleep, open the lid back up to wake, and the high CPU issue caused by "System" and "System interrupts" processes should be gone, but you have to do this every time you boot up.

Finally good news - I'm still playing with it to confirm, but this issue seems to be resolved in Yosemite 10.10.2 beta 4.

I can confirm that since updating to Yosemite 10.10.2 Build 14C94b this issue has been resolved on the following system:

Retina MacBook Pro 13" (Late 2013 model)

Windows 7 x64 Ultimate Boot Camp

Thanks to all those who submitted bug reports!

Cheers

Oh wow, that sounds cool.

When will the "normal-user" be able to update to 10.10.2?

I can´t wait to get my windows partition back.....

Just a question: Has Apple commented this issue in any way yet?

Hey guys,

I can confirm that the latest beta release of 10.10.2 (Beta 4 14C94b) fixes this issue on a MacBook Air 13" (Mid 2013) running Windows 7 Professional x64 with Boot Camp.

I don't think that the final release will be published soon because there still are too many unfixed issues even with 10.10.2 beta 4.

@Lazarus1983: Sign up for beta testing, then you can also receive the recent fix as me, cooleo100d and ssn637 did.

I have two Macbook Pro's, one from 2010 and the other from mid-2014. They have the same Bootcamp+Yosemite installed. Only the Mid 2014 edition has this problem. Why does the new hardware have a problem that the other one does not?

Obviously the drivers could be different... However this issue is a Bootcamp issue, it has never affected Yosemite for me. Perhaps the Yosemite Beta version updates the EFI or PCI settings so that Windows Bootcamp drivers work properly?

I would have expected that the Bootcamp software would be updated to fix this problem. If you have more information, let us know.

Re: Hibernation: It should be fine with a SSD: The .SYS file is just like any other file. Compared to normal boot and fast-boot, it seems like SSDs might work better with hibernation, but I'll do some testing.

Hi,

- Hibernation does not solve the problem for me. After a cold boot I have 25% at all.

- But next confirmation: 10.10.2 beta 4 fixes the problem! MBP 2013 Retina, Windows 8.1, back to 2% after cold boot.

Greetings, and thanx for the information, Joerg!

Great news! Looking forward to the public 10.10.2 release so I can give it a shot.

Those who had success with 10.10.12, can you tell us how exactly Mac OS X update affects the Bootcamp drivers in Windows? Did you have to take an additional step which may not be as trivial to me?

Hi,

no additional steps. It seems the firmware update is done during a short period during normal install where a box "don't switch off now" appeared.

The whole update from knocking on the door of the collegue with access to the beta, until we saw the 1% windows task manager, was less than 10 minutes. Hardly enough to explain the problem to him ;-)

Greetings, Joerg

Wonderful! Though delayed a lot, thankfully Apple paid attention to this major problem.

The 10.10.2 pre-release update fixed this problem on my Air 2013 too, and it sure was the EFI that caused it. I took a screenshot of the EFI version before I installed the 10.10.2 update just to be sure it got updated, and was glad to notice the end of the Boot Rom Version number got changed from B16 to B17 after the update.