How do I analyze excessive Windows kernel mode CPU

Greetings!

NOTE: X posting this from OP @ superuser: http://superuser.com/q/354768/50211 -- Feel free to answer there or here ...

tamahome wrote: You don't see the System process or Interrupts using high cpu?

I'll admit I only tried this once and haven't gotten around to try it more. (Lack of time and PC usage due to small Kid :-)

I only had the System Information graphs open, and it definitely showed the red line at 100% and the green line at ~0%.

Further investigation in processexplorer wouldn't be possible anyway, as the system is not responsive anymore.

I assume the System process was at 0%, as that normally shows up on the green line, no?
I never have used the Interrupts entry up to now, but I'll check whether I can make use of it next time I try.

Both entries still wouldn't tell me what's wrong, no?

I have now significantly updated my question on SU

Here's the summary of my findings:

Update: I have now managed to get a bit more detail with Process Explorer. This is a 2 core CPU and the 100% kernel usage is only on one core. The process list shows DPCs - Deferred Procedure Calls at 50% (that's 100% on one core). So the question is now: What's DPC and how do I fix them??

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Next update: OKIES ... using this and that I have been able to get xperf running on my Windows XP, and the sample dumps I took display just fine on my Win7 laptop.^{Yes, you need a Win7/Vista computer to view the dumps taken on Windows XP.} However, I am now facing the following problem, I can enable xperf tracing, xperf -on Latency and the problem now also reoccurred while xperf tracing was on, but as soon as my DPC goes to 100%, Windows doesn't start any new processes (or their startup never finishes) (an open e.g. cmd window remains responsive just fine, but every exe you try too call just hangs (dir works just fine because that a cmd command) -- I can only assume that CreateProcess hangs with some part of the kernel). Now, not being able to launch any new process means that I cannot run xperf -d dumpfile.etl, because, when I enter that on the cmd window, it just hangs.

So it seems I'm out of luck here. I would rather throw out the whole rig than start manually disabling drivers ... :-)

Any other ideas appreciated!

Thanks for the suggestion.
I very much doubt this'll work, as the ampersand (&) is just a way to specify to the shell/cmd.exe to run these processes one after the other.
The cmd still needs to start the process (and it only starts it once the previous one has finished), so it would hang the same.

cheers,
Martin