NDIS.sys Latency

Question

I've found a lot of threads online regarding this issue, dating all the way back to 2012, and across multiple versions of Windows.  I now have the same problem with ndis.sys generating interrupts that enter exceptionally long handlers, which creates audio and visual stuttering.  I have followed all the advice, updated all drivers, BIOS, even experimented with a "clean boot" which did not solve the problem.  Something I have found is that enabling or disabling energy efficient ethernet under the advanced tab of my network drivers properties will reliably produce the issue within 5-10 seconds of being set (i.e stuttering for 1-3 seconds).  Latencymon shows up to 200ms duration for what I assume is the interrupt handlers during this time.  Perhaps the source of this problem is a resource is being put to sleep to save energy and has to be woken up again during the interrupt handler?  The issue still occurs whether energy efficient mode is enabled or disabled, but it happens less frequently when it is disabled.

I am on Windows build 19041.685, and my network driver is Realtek PCIe GbE Family Controller (latest driver from their website).  Haven't checked if it happens on Wifi yet but the Wifi is virtually unusable in my house anyway.

Has anyone ever found a fix to this issue, and is Microsoft even aware of this issue?  Can the interrupt handler be dealt with by a secondary core so it does not freeze the main process?  I am a hardware engineer, not a software engineer so I'm not very knowledgeable in this area, any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Ndis is related to all network connections. Please try to remove Avast. Try to find another driver for your wire LAN card.

Answer 2

It's the latest version, and unfortunately the problem still exists when it's disabled.  I disabled all the WAN drivers just in case as well and rebooted, so far I haven't had a DPC longer than 2ms but that's still longer than it should be.  I'll let you know if it picks up anything in the 100+ms range.

Answer 3

May be you may update this VPN tool?

Answer 4

Hi Igor, thanks for the quick reply.  I played around with disabling different network drivers and found the one responsible!  Unfortunately it's related to my VPN for working from home, but at least I can disable it outside of office hours.  I'll raise an IT ticket within my own company, and hopefully one of the guys can look into it.

Thanks for helping me out,

Robert

EDIT:  

I spoke too soon, the problem still occurs even after disabling that driver.  I also tried disabling every driver except the Realtek driver, but that just made it worse, stutter lasted longer.  Below is a screenshot of my installed drivers, and the disabled zscaler driver.  All drivers are up to date, and running the repair tool made no changes.  Anything I should try next?

Answer 5

Hi Robert,

I'm Independent Advisor not Microsoft employee or support person. I have deep enough Windows knowledge and you may trust me. It's a pleasure for me to help others and I'll do all my best to help you.

Seems you have some conflict between network drivers.

Reinstall all network drivers from PC/motherboard support site.

Do you have some third-party network related tools (antivirus, firewall, VPN, any other network security tools)?

Try to disable network devices one by one and check for latency.

Repair system files by

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

command from Windows PowerShell (administrator) environment.