Pausing in game.

[drexel]

Im getting pauses every few minutes in games. I dont think its a fault of a driver or a card, I think it is from memory swapping, or something like that.

Any ideas how to stop it?

[Top Hat Theater]

Check your resource usage. If you have too many background services/apps running, it'll cause your system to hit the pagefile. Also, don't run MBM5 while playing games as it'll cause stutters whenever it updates.

~THT

[drexel]

I dont think its the programs. It never did this, before with them all on, and I have less on now since I put the Windowsxp msconfig into win2k.

It started after I reformatted, and hasnt stopped since. It does it on every game the same way. Pauses for 2 or 3 seconds, then goes back to normal, every few minutes, or occasionally it does it a few times in a row.

[Steven4563]

seems like u having alot off problems with your comp

id either reinstall windows for reformat. I properly would choose to reformat myself

[Top Hat Theater]

Is it reading from the CD at all? If so, you might want to check to make sure DMA is enabled rather than PIO

~THT

[drexel]

No problems with my computer, except for an option that was changed back, or my hard drive going bad, because it didnt do this before I reformatted, and I installed drivers, and UT2K3 before anything else, and it did it immediately. It did it on my old card, and now on my new one as well.

So, maybe some option was reset because I reformatted, or maybe I had a bad install when I reformatted. It did seem to take a lot longer to reformat this time, then the other times.

I just have a feeling that it is some memory switch, cause it pauses then goes fine, and it seems to do it close to a set time. As if it runs out of memory, then switches it around then it runs out again, and takes a certain time before it does it again depending on how much memory the game uses.

On counterstrike it did it once, and then worked for an hour, or so, as if it didnt need to do it as much since cs isnt as sophisticated.

I might reformat though anyway, if I dont get any good ideas from you guys about what it could be, because reformatting has always solved the problems I get, lol.

EDIT-Reading from the game disc, like loading off of it? No, that isnt it. I am playing all kinds of demos, and games that dont need discs. I dont know what RMA, or PIO is.

EDIT2-One thing I noticed is that it seems to do this more often when something special happens. An explosion, a fast turn, tank flying out of no where firing rockets, etc. Of course that could just be chance, coincidence.

[Steven4563]

your memory timings to tight or something


also read in the other thread u made in the ATI forum

[Top Hat Theater]

Are Fast Writes turned on? Try turning them off as I recall having a problem like this in 3dmark when I had them turned on.

~THT

[drexel]

I have no idea what memory timings are, but nothing is overclocked at all. Brand new video card 2 days old, and a new hard drive, about 2 weeks old. It did this with the old card too after the reformat, but not before.

When I reformated it was doing it differently then other times, or at least I think it was. First it hung at 0 pecent complete for a long time. Maybe 5 minutes, then it would do maybe 10 percent at a time, then hang for a minute then go again.

It could be the hard drive. When I first got it, it made some weird sound.

[drexel]

Yeah fast write is on, but I dont think it was on when I had my other video card in here, and it did it then too. I dont even think that card had fast write. It was a TI 4200.

Ill try with fast write off for 10, or so minutes and see what happens.

[Top Hat Theater]

Try turning off Fast Write support in your BIOS (if that setting is available). If not, turn them off at the driver level and see what happens. Some people, myself included, associate Fast Writes with stability as well as performance issues.

~THT

[drexel]

Ok, that didnt help.

Also, like I said above, it usually does it when something extra is going to happen. I went in to a deathmach of UT2K3, and it did it right when I hear someone fire off a redeemer.

This is annoying.

[Steven4563]

how much ram have u got it would be a good idea for u to have your rig in your sig

[drexel]

I have 512.

Its in my profile, but I should put it in a sig. Ill do that now.

[drexel]

Test

[Xstatic]

You say its doing it more often when graphics are more intense? And less when they are less intense? This sounds like a video problem to me. Do you have agp enabled in bios? Sounds fishy to me.

[drexel]

Yeah, but I dont mean when graphics are more intense, its when something that doesnthappen as much that is more spectacular, and out of the ordinary happens. Like the redeemer gets shot off, or explodes, and it just did it again when deemer was out. Just a second ago. It also likes to do it when I hit the button to show scores.

It shouldnt be a video card problem, because it did it with my old card I had just 2 days ago. Only way is if the drivers I installed for that caused it to happen with that card, then when I got the new one it is still doing it, but that was nvidia, and this is ati. I dont see how it could effect it, and I used a driver cleaner.

This also happened on the old card with 3 different drivers installed. It seemed worse with certain ones, but could be coincidence.

[drexel]

Im just going to reformat. Its doing some weird stuff now. Leaving windows open that I close, failing to show Start programs window, etc.

[Steven4563]

good luck


also did u look at the score i posted ???

[jrbob]

It sounds like you need to reinstall the chipset drivers to me.
This same thing happened to a friend of mine after he installed the 3.8s.

[drexel]

Ok, I reformatted, and it didnt fix it. It also reformatted the drive, all screwy again. Hung at 0percent for 5 minutes, then went fine till 49percent, and hung on each percet after for about 3 minutes a piece up until around 58. Then it went fine to 100percent.

I reformatted my old drive, and it hung at 0 too, but not for as long. It hung around 60 percent, but not for too long, then went fine to 100.

So, pretty sure its the hard drive.

Are there any programs that can test my hard drive for flaws, that doesnt use a floppy disk? I dont have a working floppy drive.

The problem is I dont have a receipt since I saw the info entered into their computer, I thought I wouldnt need it. If it is the hard drive, is there anyway to send it directly to the manufacturer for a new one, without a receipt or packaging? I bought it in just a static bag.

Im going to install a game on the old drive, and see if it does it on that one too.

[Sentential]

Ive got the same problems....its your CPU/HDD. Run P-95 it seems to help. After running P95 the stutters smooth out. (ive got mine @ 2.3ghz) Ive found that its directally related to your PCI speed. VIA dosnt lock the PCI bus. So the higher the bus the more errors.

Those stutters you see are HDD errors / corruption. Check the condition of your HDD. If its not your HDD then your CPU is giving bad instructions. Stress out the errors.

Keep in mind you gotta break a computer in. Anytime you get a new part put in it, it will act screwy until its breaks itself in. (like a car)

[drexel]

Ok, but Im on my old hard drive, and it is working fine. No stutters. So, it was the new hard drive, and isnt the cpu.

I dont know what you mean by PCI, and this happened when I didnt have VIA 4 in 1 drivers on my motherboard.

Ill run p-95, whatever that is, if it doesnt need a floppy disk.
Also, I cant run scandisk to check the errors, because it says I dont have permission, or something similiar.

How can I gain permission?

[Steven4563]

log into admin threw pressing F8 at boot to load in safe mood :)

[Sentential]

The PCI bus controls rudimentary functions of a PC (sound cards / CD-ROMS, HDD) When you OC the PCI bus the # of errors skyrocket.

Via dosnt lock the PCI bus. So when you up the FSB to the CPU it also OCs the PCI bus (which is really bad) The higher the errors the more likely the comp will crash.

Unless you defrag everyday and check disk every other.You risk corrupting your OS. Im gettin stuttering from an OCed PCI bus. Now that I droped the OC down a bit, it has gone away. Stuttering is direcrtally related to the # of errors produced.

Like I said these errors are either caused by an overly OCed PCI bus or a bad HDD

[drexel]

Hmm, well I did turn it up for a bit, but only for like half hour. Not too high though, only to like, 138 from 133. I dont know if that was around the same time, but maybe.

[Sentential]

Just keep an eye on your PCI bus. I start to get problems when I set it above 35Mhz.

[Sentential]

...Update, getting stranger, After runing 3dmark03 several runs stuttering is gone + its 10mhz higher on the FSB.

I guess its one of those phantom problems

[drexel]

I ran a zeroing program on the hard drive from Western Digital, and it fixed the format hang problem, and the slow loading of windows. Testing it with games now, and it seems to be fine.