Wierd stuttering problem

[dmc68]

Ok, I am running a SoundBlaster Sound Card with a Radeon X800 video card.

The two worked fine together, and then I did a reformat.

Since the reformat, when I play music in Itunes, Windows Media or flash I get a pretty severe stuttering effect every once in a while. The kicker is, this does not happen in DVD mode.

Have checked IRQ's moved the card around to different MOBO slots, made sure onboard sound was disabled, ran system file checker, reinstalled drivers etc etc.

Windows XP 2

Anyone have any ideas on how to get out of this mess without a reformat?

 

[uncle_ben]

Check CPU usage when it stutters.

How many processes load onto startup?

It could be an app, service or some dodgy process
that steals CPU cycles and causes dropouts so keep the list of processes as short as possible.

Also try to see when exactly it stutters. Is there any logical connection with anything else happening? Perhaps this is an antivirus updating its database in the background or something like that.

Also check IRQ sharing assigments running msinfo32.exe. Also check mobo manual for info on which PCI slot shares bandwidth with network card and don't use this one.

Good Luck!

 

[dmc68]

Check CPU usage when it stutters.

How many processes load onto startup?

About 30, however was happening before all these startup processes were added though

It could be an app, service or some dodgy process
that steals CPU cycles and causes dropouts so keep the list of processes as short as possible.

Process list is pretty short

Also try to see when exactly it stutters. Is there any logical connection with anything else happening? Perhaps this is an antivirus updating its database in the background or something like that.

No, I watched performance meter in task manager. It is happening when CPU is under like 25% load

Also check IRQ sharing assigments running msinfo32.exe. Also check mobo manual for info on which PCI slot shares bandwidth with network card and don't use this one.

IRQ assignments are fine, it is running on slot 20 currently, was running on 10 before and same problem.



Good Luck!

Thanks for your reply man, this thing is kickin my ass, cannot figure it out and been at it off an on for two months. Called creative and of course nada from them.

 

[uncle_ben]

Okay,

then try to:

(1) find a latest non-beta driver for this card, install it, reboot and see if things improve,

(2) change pci latency values in bios. Try with 64 cycles. Save and Exit. Use your computer for some time and see if this helps. If you do not have this setting in bios you can google PCI latency timer tool, it is free.

(3) Another thing to try is to reinstal your "My computer" driver i.e. ACPI configuration in Device Manager. If it is currently listed as ACPI Uniprocessor try changing this to ACPI Advanced Configuration and Power Interface. Not sure why but it helps a lot with sound issues. But can't be done if you use hyperthreading or dual core. (Don't pick standard PC). Once it is done check the IRQ assigments again to make sure sound card's IRQ not shared.

Also:

(4) Try to observe what precedes or accompanies this stuttering

(5) Switch off all services loaded at startup in msconfig.exe (i.e use diagnostic startup) and disconnect from the web and see if problem occurs or not. If it does not then it is another clue.

Good Luck!

 

[nel]

I have the same problem but I do not have a sound card (just using whats on the mobo) my problem is I only get that noise whenever i open an application but not all the time i get it,,, my ??? is,, is that normal?

 

[commanderspockep]

I had this same problem after a reformat. What fixed it was a chipset driver update.

Tell us how it works out.