ITPEC FE Morning April 2023 Question 17

Source exam: ITPEC FE Morning April 2023Topic: Computer Systems & Hardware

ITPEC FE Morning April 2023 — Question 17 of 80

CPU Utilization with Interrupt-Driven I/O — calculate free CPU time during printing.

Given:
- Print speed: 400 characters/sec

- Each character triggers an interrupt: 50 μs

Step-by-step:
- Total interrupt time per second: 400 × 50 = 20,000 μs

- 1 second = 1,000,000 μs

- CPU busy ratio: 20,000 / 1,000,000 = 0.02 = 2%

- CPU available: 100% − 2% = 98%

Answer: (a) 98

Why not others:
- (b) 96 — would require 40,000 μs of interrupt time (double the actual)

- (c) 4 — confuses busy percentage with a smaller calculation error

- (d) 2 — this is the busy percentage, not the available percentage

Key rule: CPU available % = 100% − (interrupts_per_sec × time_per_interrupt) / total_time × 100%

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