Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for determining when to throttle interrupts to limit interrupt processing to an interrupt processing time. Upon receiving interrupts from the hardware device, a determination is made as to whether a number of received interrupts exceeds an interrupt threshold during a interrupt tracking time period. If so, an interrupt throttling state is set to a first value indicating to only process interrupts during an interrupt processing time period. Interrupts from the hardware device are processed during the interrupt time period when the interrupt throttling state is set to the first value. Interrupts received from the hardware are masked during a processing of a scan loop of operations while the interrupt throttling has the first value and the interrupt processing time period has expired, wherein the masked interrupts are not processed while processing the scan loop of operations.

A processor is disclosed and includes at least one core including a first core, and interrupt delay logic. The interrupt delay logic is to receive a first interrupt at a first time and delay the first interrupt from being processed by a first time delay that begins at the first time, unless the first interrupt is pending at a second time when a second interrupt is processed by the first core. If the first interrupt is pending at the second time, the interrupt delay logic is to indicate to the first core to begin to process the first interrupt prior to completion of the first time delay. Other embodiments are disclosed and claimed.