I'm not sure I follow the reasoning here. David, IRQ 0 is a hardware
interrupt and is not maskable and has priority over the over 14 hardware
interrupts. Any software interrupts are maskable and in fact are masked (or
are superceded) by hardware interrupts. I certainly don't intend to start a
flame and I'm sure you must be on to something, but could you explain how
this is possible?

-----Original Message-----
  This probably means that the CPU is spending too much of its time
executing
code that cannot be interrupted by IRQ 0.  I'd expect to see such code
inside
some kinds of device drivers, or in code associated with virtual memory
swapping or drive compression, and *possibly* virus detection.

         The PCBUILD web site always needs good submissions.  If
          you would like to contribute to the website, send any
               hardware tech tips or hardware reviews to:
                           [log in to unmask]