How to stop Killer Services from restarting

Version of Windows?

Click Start>Run>type in: services.msc and click OK. When services.msc opens, locate and double-click each Killer (and xTend) service and set it's Startup Type to Disabled. Don't change anything else in services.msc. Exit services.msc and reboot.

That should fix the upload speed issue you posted here.   NOTE: every time Windows Update installs a new Killer update (typically named as an Intel update), you should check to make sure those Killer services weren't re-enabled by the update. And if internet speeds change, that's also time to check status of the Killer services again, too.

All Intel items you listed are essential, except Intel Optane Service, if you don't have an Optane module in your PC. You can disable this service in services.msc, but I wouldn't uninstall it.

If you're only using onboard Intel Graphics, without an add-in video card installed, Intel Graphics Command Center is their app to control various display settings. Right-click an empty area of your desktop and you should see Intel Graphics Control Center listed. Open it to see the available settings/options. If you have an add-in video card, when you right-click the desktop, you'll see a control center listed for your video card, not for Intel Graphics.

Do you see any functional problems with your PC and accessories when you see the PCI D0702 error? Since you're getting it when running Dell's SupportAssist, do you have the latest version of SupportAssist installed? This false error was a problem with a previous version of SupportAssist that was supposed to have been fixed.

Speedtest is still showing appropriate upload and download speed with all the Killer stuff disabled. But some of my Chrome webpages are loading very slowly. It isn't consistent though.

I do have the latest version of Support Assist running. I ran a scan today and I still receive the PCI Status-Fail, PCI Status Tests D0702.

I have an Nvidia GTX 1080 graphics card in addition to the onboard Intel one and Intel sees it in their Graphics Command Center. I bought the Nvidia card for Lightroom and Photoshop but have never experienced the speed that I should.

I've always wondered if this machine is a "lemon" and if there are lemon laws for computers. Is that possible? While it was under warranty, from March 2018-April 2019 Dell replaced 2 motherboards and the hard drive 3x. They were about to give me a new machine but it needed to fail again within some given amount of time and it did not. As I look back, the issues were drivers not updating, dual monitor issues, freezing screens, and video issues in Lightroom or Autocad not rendering properly or displaying properly. This machine has been a complete disappointment and I don't know if I can buy another Dell now.

You still didn't tell us what version of Windows you're running or any of the specs for this system:

• Which CPU?
• How much RAM?
• Version of BIOS?
• Boot drive: SSD or HDD and size(s)?
• How much free space on boot drive, and on other internal HDD(s)?
• What version Realtek Audio driver is installed?
• Is monitor connected to NVidia card or one of the two onboard Intel Graphics ports?
  Are you using a decent quality video cable?
• How are you connecting to the internet?
  Ethernet (hard-wired to router) or WiFi to router?

Have you tried disabling all Chrome extensions and seeing if those "slow" web sites are faster? If that helps, you can re-enable Chrome extensions one at a time to see if you can identify the culprit.

When was last time you cleared Chrome's cache and cookie files? Bloated cache and cookie files can slow things down.

Have you tried opening those slow sites with a different browser to see if that makes a difference?

What antiviral app are you using, Windows Defender (aka: Microsoft Security), McAfee...?

How much unnecessary junk is loading at every boot and hogging PC resources in background?

Have you scanned thoroughly for malware recently? Malwarebytes (free) would be a good tool for this.

I really appreciate you engaging me on this. I think it is morphing into a different issue, so feel free to move it to a different thread if that is appropriate. I would love some additional opinions about my overall system and whether I should consider replacing it altogether at this point since I have frequent  driver/graphics-related issues. I wonder if this system can handle the Nvidia card properly. Or is there something I can do to manage driver updates? My issues all seem to be related to driver updates. For example: I could not get Adobe Lightroom Classic (desktop version) to download my photos from Lightroom's cloud in March and lost a week or two troubleshooting. At some point, some new combination of drivers was released--Windows, Adobe, Nvidia (and maybe ANOTHER Dell BIOS update). Once all those drivers updated, my photos began to download to Lightroom Classic at an appropriate speed again. To answer some of your last questions.

1. My internet connection is hard-wired.
2. Monitors are connected to the Nvidia card.
3. Windows Defender
4. I clear cache & cookie files regularly, especially when I'm having issues like I have lately. I will do it again.
5. Because I often have problems, I remove programs, and check what is hogging resources fairly regularly. Although I miss things, like this Killer process. Everything related to it is uninstalled. I have no apps, but somehow, the services got re-enabled and throttled my upload speeds.
6. This may be related to the D0702 error: I do not use anything wireless on this machine and previously disabled the Killer Wireless 1535 Network Adapter in an effort to stop the Killer services from running. It is listed as a "Problem Device" in my system information. Should I re-enable it?
7. I haven't run Malwarebytes lately so I will do that.
8. System information below: I included both a screenshot and text version of the "Display" screen so you can see the full driver file path.

Name	Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630
PNP Device ID	PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3E92&SUBSYS_08591028&REV_00\3&11583659&1&10
Adapter Type	Intel(R) UHD Graphics Family, Intel Corporation compatible
Adapter Description	Intel(R) UHD Graphics 630
Adapter RAM	1.00 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes)
Installed Drivers	C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iigd_dch.inf_amd64_a34e85e556ccdec6\igdumdim64.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iigd_dch.inf_amd64_a34e85e556ccdec6\igd10iumd64.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iigd_dch.inf_amd64_a34e85e556ccdec6\igd10iumd64.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\iigd_dch.inf_amd64_a34e85e556ccdec6\igd12umd64.dll
Driver Version	27.20.100.9664
INF File	oem179.inf (iCFL_w10_DS section)
Color Planes	Not Available
Color Table Entries	Not Available
Resolution	Not Available
Bits/Pixel	Not Available
Memory Address	0xFE000000-0xFEFFFFFF
Memory Address	0xA0000000-0xAFFFFFFF
I/O Port	0x0000FEC0-0x0000FEFF
IRQ Channel	IRQ 4294967238
Driver	C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERSTORE\FILEREPOSITORY\IIGD_DCH.INF_AMD64_A34E85E556CCDEC6\IGDKMD64.SYS (27.20.100.9664, 27.63 MB (28,973,608 bytes), 6/18/2021 12:11 AM)
	
Name	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
PNP Device ID	PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1B80&SUBSYS_33661028&REV_A1\4&297196E1&0&0008
Adapter Type	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, NVIDIA compatible
Adapter Description	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080
Adapter RAM	(1,048,576) bytes
Installed Drivers	C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvddsi.inf_amd64_cb1a26b3b4271974\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvddsi.inf_amd64_cb1a26b3b4271974\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvddsi.inf_amd64_cb1a26b3b4271974\nvldumdx.dll,C:\WINDOWS\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository\nvddsi.inf_amd64_cb1a26b3b4271974\nvldumdx.dll
Driver Version	31.0.15.3598
INF File	oem167.inf (Section015 section)
Color Planes	Not Available
Color Table Entries	4294967296
Resolution	1920 x 1080 x 60 hertz
Bits/Pixel	32
Memory Address	0xEB000000-0xEC0FFFFF
Memory Address	0xA0000000-0xB1FFFFFF
Memory Address	0xB0000000-0xB1FFFFFF
I/O Port	0x0000E000-0x0000EFFF
IRQ Channel	IRQ 16
Driver	C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERSTORE\FILEREPOSITORY\NVDDSI.INF_AMD64_CB1A26B3B4271974\NVLDDMKM.SYS (31.0.15.3598, 56.26 MB (58,992,640 bytes), 6/19/2023 5:15 PM)

 Problem Devices: 

Killer Wireless-n/a/ac 1535 Wireless Network Adapter                PCI\VEN_168C&DEV_003E&SUBSYS_15351A56&REV_32\4&2C6D63FE&0&00E2 This device is disabled.

THANK YOU!!!! Bonnie

Any time you intentionally disable a functional device in Device Manager, it will be flagged as having a problem. So that's not a problem if you don't mind seeing the warning flag for the WiFi card. You could try enabling it to see if that PCI error message disappears.

Every time Windows Update installs a Killer/Intel update, all same Killer (and xTend) services get re-enabled, even if you don't have any Killer apps installed. So you have to play whack-a-mole with those services any time your internet speed suddenly drops.

Browsers typically leave lots of "stuff" behind even after you use their own option to clear cache and cookies. I run ccleaner (free) from time to time, especially when I start seeing browser problems, to get rid of all that leftover browser junk.

Is your boot drive an M.2 NVME SSD (brand/model) or a HDD (brand/model)? What's the capacity of the boot drive and how much free space is available?

Your system info says you have 16 GB of RAM installed but only 4 GB is available. Obviously you may be running lots of apps at same time but what's hogging so much RAM? Open Task Manager and look on the Processes tab to see what's hogging RAM. (Chrome with lots of extensions running?)

I also have XPS 8930 with 16 GB of RAM, 10 GB available. I currently have 8 Firefox windows open, and 5 Thunderbird (email) windows open plus whatever else Windows loads in background. 

Reboot and tap F12 when you see the Dell splash screen. When the F12 menu opens, select the option to run diagnostics and run all of them, including extended RAM and extended tests on your drive(s). Copy error messages, if any... Be patient, these tests can take a l-o-n-g time.

Assuming you don't have any hardware errors, we can check for Windows errors next...

Thank you for your patience. Sorry for the delay, I was away from the computer for a long weekend. I forgot about Ccleaner. I ran it and all is well. No Malware either. Computer boots from the 512GB Toshiba drive that I believe is part of the motherboard. I asked Dell if I could pay to upgrade the main drive when they replaced the 2 motherboards and 3 hard drives but they would not consider it. The other 2 drives mostly hold photos and videos.  

RAM: It is probable that I was running Lightroom when I captured the info that shows only 4 GB of RAM available. But you did make me dig into it a bit. Chrome is definitely the biggest user of RAM and it did not reduce much while I was cleaning stuff up. I uninstalled forgotten extensions, closed all but 3 tabs on Chrome and it is still using ~ 15% of my RAM. Outlook uses 5%. System Summary only shows 6GB available after all that, which is better, but doesn't make sense compared to your system. Here is a snip of what is using my memory. I have everything closed except Chrome, Outlook, Task Manager & System Information screen. 

I believe I already ran all the boot drive diagnostic tests available at the beginning of this process. The test I ran took 24 hours. When I shut down today I will start that test again and post if there are any errors. It was that test that made me realize my original upload problem was software, not hardware related. But your questions are exposing that I am using too much RAM for the processes I have running. So I appreciate you helping me troubleshoot it. 

Chrome is hogging a lot of RAM.  Read this. FWIW, I have 6 Firefox windows open, with one active extension, and it's only using ~3% here.

Do you really need these running: 

1. Creative Cloud UI Helper 
   
   
2. CrashPlan  - Is this something your employer requires?
   
   
3. Malwarebytes service - Are you using the paid, full-time Malwarebytes instead of Microsoft's free Windows Defender? Or is this service running because you ran an on-demand (one-time) scan with their free version before you took the screen shot?  If its the free version, you can stop the Malwarebytes service from loading at every boot. Click Start>Run>type in: services.msc and click OK. When services.msc opens, double-click the Malwarebytes entry and set its Startup Type to Manual. Don't change anything else in services.msc. Just close it and reboot. That way Malwarebytes service will only load when you manually start a scan, but it won't load at every boot.
   
   
4. SupportAssist - IMO opinion, you can disable or uninstall this, unless you really, really need it to monitor your PC for updates etc, all of which you can do manually.

So this is fascinating. Creative Cloud (also checked for Adobe...) and Support Assist (also checked Dell Support Assist) are not showing up in my services list. I am using the free Malware Bytes but it does not allow me to change the Startup Type to "Manual". Message "Access is Denied".

Ran the BIOS Diagnostics again overnight and got no errors. Although it did make me realize my computer is booting from the 2TB Samsung NVMe drive. I'm not sure how because I added that drive when a regular HDD was failing and moved my photos to that drive. Would Windows have automatically done that when I updated to Windows 11? I took screenshots of my configuration after the boot diagnostics if you would like to see those.

CrashPlan is an online cloud backup system. I struggle to keep it running automatically. It's supposed to keep a backup of all my hard drives. I am open to other suggestions. I used to use Carbonite but at some point I realized it was not backing up videos and/or capping photo backups unless you manually told it to backup a particular file. I mainly need it to backup about 4 TB of photos and videos.

Task Manager shows my memory usage at 53%, Chrome fluctuating between 10-15%, System Information currently shows I have 7.38 GB available. So another small boost since the last time I checked.

Regarding Support Assist. I agree that it isn't very helpful. I will uninstall it. But it is usually one of the first things that "flags" impending updates. I have been amazed at how many times they update the BIOS. That usually coincides with performance issues that don't get resolved until each software company reacts to the latest BIOS update. How do you stay on top of that?

Looking forward to your next bit of advice!

How did you update to Win 11, a clean install or just an update from inside Win 10?

Don't see how PC could be booting from the Samsung SSD unless you installed Windows on it, or possibly CrashPlan did it. Was the failing HDD your original boot drive? And is it still connected? Was the M.2 NVME slot empty before you installed the Samsung SSD there?

Are you logged into an account with Administrator privileges? I can freely change the Malwarebytes Startup type for their free version on my XPS 8930 running Win 10 22H2. 

Do you see any "Dell" service(s) listed in services.msc, possibly Dell Update...?  Also look on the Startup tab in Task Manager for SupportAssist and/or Dell Update and for Creative Cloud. You can disable them there if you can't do it in services.msc.

The frequency of BIOS updates is probably going to slow down, from here on. BIOS updates were coming out so fast that they were causing serious problems on a number of Dell PC models. They ended up withdrawing quite a few of these updates.

XPS 8930 BIOS 1.1.29 and 1.1.30 were both withdrawn (no reasons given), so now the latest one available is 1.1.28.  I'm still running 1.1.30 with no visible issues, but that doesn't mean there isn't some hidden (security) issue.  Not going to worry about it...

FWIW, I uninstalled SupportAssist/Dell Update on my PC. I just manually check about once a month for driver updates by entering my Service Tag on the Support page. (Don't post Service Tag here.)  I download the ones I want/need and install them manually.

I updated from inside Windows. When Windows 11 first came out, my system told me it wasn't eligible for an upgrade without me doing something...but I never did that. After one of the BIOS updates, Windows wanted to update to 11 without requiring me to do anything else, so I allowed it.

The failing HDD was not the boot drive. It came out of a previous machine. I had one HDD for photos, one HDD for videos. I'm hitting the wall with storage on this machine so that's another issue I'm dealing with. The failing HDD is no longer connected.

So to add the 2 TB drive I installed the following: "SilverStone ECM22, Dual M.2 to PCIex4NVMeSSD and Sata 6G adapter card with advanced cooling". What I can't remember without opening my machine is if I removed the 512 GB drive & attached it to this M.2 to PCIe adapter. I don't think I did. My notes say that my computer had plenty of PCI slots. Once again, your questions have caused me to go back and look at things differently. When Dell replaced the mother last motherboard in April 2019 the Windows product key would not activate, and my notes say that the 2 previous Windows product keys also would not activate. Also, they installed a 5th hard drive in April 2019. I really wish they'd replaced everything at that point. 5 hard drives and 3 motherboards in 18 months. 

Yes logged in as Admin and even opened the services.msc tab via the "Run as Administrator" command prompt and still says Access Denied.

The only Dell service on my device is "Dell Client Management Service".

I believe what you are saying about the BIOS updates. It was ridiculous. Each time I would lose a week or so of troubleshooting before I could get all the software to work together again.

What would you do if you were me? Is this machine just a lemon and I should cut my losses and replace it since I'm hitting the storage limits and it has never handled the Adobe photo processing the way I believe it should have. That was why I bought it, to speed up my workflow. It was choking when I was trying to finish my last book and upload it. The Killer stuff was the upload problem but as I was reviewing the final book, it would struggle to render the pages. As always, looking forward to your advice.

Aside from high RAM usage, exactly what problem(s) are you having now, if any? 

We'd need to know exactly which drive is the boot drive, the old SSD in the adapter card, the new SSD in the M.2 NVME slot or some other drive, and exactly which drive(s) has (have) all your personal files before trying to fix any problems, beyond high RAM usage. 

FWIW, the Windows product key is stored on the motherboard, and every board has a unique key. So "old" product keys won't activate Windows with a new motherboard. In this case, you're supposed to log into your Microsoft account which is supposed to activate the OS. And if it doesn't, you have to contact Microsoft directly for a new key, when you tell them Dell installed a replacement motherboard.

At the moment, we were just digging in to the high RAM usage. 

According to boot diagnostics, the 2 TB NVMe drive is the BootPath. It also has a lot of my photos on it. The 512GB drive has all our regular computer data files, autocad files, etc. 

Yes regarding the Windows installs and their product key. Dell was the one coming out to replace them and yes, had to call Microsoft to get a different product key because the one on the motherboard didn't work. Like I said. I think this machine is a lemon and they should have replaced it during the first 18 months of problems.

I appreciate your help. I'm not sure there is much else that can be done at this point. My machine just doesn't work as well as it should. Thanks for your help.

1. Exactly where did you copy/paste that last image from?  I don't understand why it says the boot path is MBR of hard drive 1-0-1. I would think it should say GPT of hard drive 1-0-1.
   
   
2. Is that 2T Samsung SSD boot drive in the M.2 slot or in the PCI-e adapter card?
   
   
3. Reboot and tap F2 to open BIOS setup. Is SATA Operation set to RAID or AHCI? DO NOT change it!  Just exit setup without changing anything and tell us how SATA Operation is set.

Try this:

1. At desktop, open a CMD prompt window, Run as administrator
   
   
2. At the prompt, type in: chkdsk c: /r and press Enter. Accept the offer to run chkdsk at next boot and reboot PC. chkdsk will run before Windows loads so be patient. When PC gets to desktop, you can look at the chkdsk log to see if there were any "unfixed" errors.
   
   
3. At desktop, open a CMD prompt window, Run as administrator
   
   
4. At the prompt, type in: DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-image /Restorehealth and press Enter. Be sure to include a space in front of each / and note any error messages when that's done.
   
   
5. Assuming no "unfixed" errors in #2 or #4, at the CMD prompt, Run as administrator, type in: sfc /scannow and press Enter. Be sure to include a space in front of the / and note any errors when that's done.
   
   
6. Assuming no "unfixed" errors anywhere, reboot PC and see if performance improves.

Do you have 4x 4 GB or 2x 8 GB of RAM now? If 2x 8, you could easily install another 2x 8 GB of compatible RAM. Crucial is a good source of RAM compatible with Dell PCs. For XPS 8930, 2x 8 GB is ~$35.00 directly from Crucial and only ~$30 at Amazon.  (At that price, I might even buy another 2x 8 GB!)

1. The image came from the "Configuration" tab after I ran the boot diagnostics extended tests that takes about 7-8 hours.
2. The 2 TB Samsung SSD is on the PCI-e adapter card.
3. AHCI
4. I did not get any errors when I ran chkdsk. 
5. Nor did I get any error report with the DISM.exe...
6. But sfc/scannow did show that something had been repaired and it was recorded under Windows:Logs:CBS. I downloaded a text file of the CBS.log. When I search that log for the word "repair" I find: "Only CSI metadat corruption found, Process CSI repair"

Yes, upgrading my RAM is an easy step. I guess I just haven't done it because I've been wondering about replacing this machine. BTW, still can't disable the automatic startup of malware bytes. Still not seeing any Adobe or Creative Cloud service even though Task Manager shows it as the 3rd highest memory user.  Overall Memory usage is hovering around 48% with Chrome & Outlook open, so that's another incremental improvement. Thank you.

If the boot SSD is in the PCI-e adapter card, that could be a performance issue. Putting the boot SSD in the M.2 NVME slot on motherboard should make things faster.

You may want to uninstall Malwarebytes. You can always download/install it again, if you need it.

Are any Adobe or Creative Cloud .exe files (rather than services) listed on the Startup tab in Task Manager?  Open the Windows Task Scheduler app and look around for any scheduled Adobe tasks. Disable all of them. Reboot and see if Cloud is still listed in Task Manager.

Read this about reducing Outlook RAM usage. Notice in "Rule 2" at the link that Outlook can load some Adobe items, so that's a possible reason you don't see them listed separately anywhere.

You can run ccleaner (free) to clean out the Chrome cache, cookies etc, and then run the cclearner registry tool too. If the registry tool offers to delete anything, be sure to let it save the changes first. That way they can be easily undone if something goes amiss.

You can also try a different browser to see if that lowers RAM usage. Edge is built into Windows so that would be first one to try, and Firefox (free) is another.