Computer skipping/Hiccups

[wasabi91]

Over the past couple months everytime i play games or watch videos on youtube, the audio skips first, then video comes after and now sometimes, the mouse freezes up in the same manner. This little hiccuping that occurs just makes it impossible to listen to audio, play movies, and for most games it slows the computer down a lot. I replaced my Radeon 5770 with a crappy 8500 GT and it still happened im starting to think its not my video rather than something else maybe a CPU related problem or such.(It isnt a overheating problem all my components are well ventilled and have aftermarket fans) My specs are:

Windows Vista SP2
AMD phenom II x4 940 BE
4gb DDR2 MEM
Radeon HD 5770 1GB
Hitachi 320 GB Hard Drive
700w RaidMax PSU

Please Help!

 

[popatim]

Spyware, irq conflict, dma conflict, heavy load on cpu/memory/hdd all can do this. leave taskmanagers performance tab up and kinda watch it while you work to check the cpu loading. Heck you might even notice on that screen that your memory isnt what it should be, My old htpc developed a simular problem and when I checked that screen I noticed my total ram was only 256mb <shock> out of 2gb installed.

 

[wasabi91]

It shows my ram has 4000 availabe 2000 something is cached and i saw the free ram go down to as low as 1 during certain times. I dont exactly know where all my RAM is going i dont have extra stuff turned on....

 

[moody89]

Well if you're RAM is being fully utilised, Windows will write data to the HDD Paging File instead which of course is a lot slower than your RAM. This is probably the cause of your slow-downs/hiccups.

The first thing to check is that your system is free from spyware/malware etc. since this is the most likely culprit at this point. Some basic pointers:



Remove the obvious rubbish etc. from Add/Remove Programs or whatever it's called in Vista.

Flush your temporary files etc. with CCleaner.

Scan your entire system with your AV solution (Avira is a good free solution). Fix anything suspicious it finds.

Download, install and run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Fix anything it finds.

You can also download and run SuperAntiSpyware. There is a portable version on the website meaning you don't have to install anything. Just keep an eye out for false positives with this one since it's a fairly comprehensive scanner.

In addition I would also download and run ComboFix. This scans your system and automatically fixes any known issues.

Finally, turn system restore off on all drives. Sometimes malware can infect your system restore points and will reinstall itself again and again - it will not be detected in your system restore points. Disabling system restore deletes all old restore points. Only perform this step once you have a clean, working system since an infected restore point is better than none if things go bad. You can then re-enable system restore.

Post back and let us know any results/improvements and we'll take it from there. Best of luck

 

[wasabi91]

Alright ive already deleted all the unecessary junk off already and defraggled and cc cleaned it and ran a MalwareBytes and it didnt detect anything. I also noticed even when i listen to music on my zune software and i minimize it the audio even skips not just the video. Maybe suggests a audio problem? Lastly i scanned with SuperAntiSpyware supposedly so far its found 21 Adware Tracking Cookies but iono if that true or not ill upload a photo of my RAM shortly after this message

 

[popatim]

tracking cookies wouldn't really cause it, they are just internet files so sites can tell where you were or where on the page; things like that. If spyware isnt causing it then its time to check elsewhere. I dont really know Vista well.
Does it do it in safe mode?
If your harddrive is IDE check to make sure it hasn't dropped out of dma mode. http://forum.digital-digest.com/showthread.php?t=61905
Updated all your drivers, and bios?
turn off things in your bios you don't use like parallel ports, comm ports...

 

[wasabi91]

All my drivers are up to date video card etd.... ill try booting it in safe mode and see if it occurs then report back on my findings

 

[Griffin Wagner]

Well if you're RAM is being fully utilised, Windows will write data to the HDD Paging File instead which of course is a lot slower than your RAM. This is probably the cause of your slow-downs/hiccups.

The first thing to check is that your system is free from spyware/malware etc. since this is the most likely culprit at this point. Some basic pointers:



Remove the obvious rubbish etc. from Add/Remove Programs or whatever it's called in Vista.

Flush your temporary files etc. with CCleaner.

Scan your entire system with your AV solution (Avira is a good free solution). Fix anything suspicious it finds.

Download, install and run MalwareBytes Anti-Malware. Fix anything it finds.

You can also download and run SuperAntiSpyware. There is a portable version on the website meaning you don't have to install anything. Just keep an eye out for false positives with this one since it's a fairly comprehensive scanner.

In addition I would also download and run ComboFix. This scans your system and automatically fixes any known issues.

Finally, turn system restore off on all drives. Sometimes malware can infect your system restore points and will reinstall itself again and again - it will not be detected in your system restore points. Disabling system restore deletes all old restore points. Only perform this step once you have a clean, working system since an infected restore point is better than none if things go bad. You can then re-enable system restore.

Post back and let us know any results/improvements and we'll take it from there. Best of luck

Even though this is almost 4 years old, this was extremely helpful and solved my issue! Pretty sure it was down to some malware that was over looked.