Looking For An Answer

Where do I begin. I can say that I've tried all possible combinations of drivers and BIOS from nVidia, Abit and remixes.

Right now I'm running Mwarhead Remix v2.45 w/o IDE SW drivers.

This Is My System:

Abit NF7-S rev.2.0 (this is my 2nd. rev v2.0 board less than 2 weeks old) The problem exists on this board as well. Bios v2.0. I've tried all releases including modified versions 1.0 and v2.0. by EQuito (Abit forum). I know there is a v2.1 and v2.2. But It doesn't seem to be the answer.

Barton 2500+ (Not overclocked)
Thermalright SLK-900(A) Clip-On
80x25mm Variable Speed YS-Tech 3-pin Case Fan 10.2~48.5CFM

512MB (2x256) PC3200 222 Mushkin (inserted in slots 1&3) the system on boot up says dual channel is enabled.

Antec TruePower supply 480watts

Adaptec AHA-2940U/2940UW/ PCI SCSI Controller (latest bios flashed).
Initio Ultra SCSI Host Adapter ( I got this to test to see if it might be the controller). Still have the same problem with either controller in place.

(3) x 9.1 gig IBM Ultrastar SCSI HHDs
(1) 36.7gig Quantum/Maxtor Atlas 10k II (partition in two, and XP resides on one of the partitions).
At fist I thought it might be the HDD so I got in touch with Maxtor and they sent a replacement drive (Atlas 10k III). So I partition that and installed XP. But I still have that same problem. So it wasn't the HDD.

Lite-On DVD+RW LDW-401S (IDE)
Plextor CD-R PX-W82220T (SCSI)
Toshiba CD-Rom XM-6201TA (SCSI)
Toshiba DVD-Rom SD-M1401 (SCSI)

Logitech optical mouse (I generally know something isn't right because I notice that the mouse is slow even with "motion" speed all the way up in the control panel. Yes I have the proper drivers for the mouse loaded.
But the mouse feels like it is being "held" back. As if the motion was set to slow. But as I mentioned, I have it set all the way up. So the mouse should be flying all over the desktop.

I'm running Norton Antivirus 2004 and also running AdAware (latest with current updates) and Spybot.
Yes, I clean after every internet activity.

I've even defrag with Diskeeper v8.0.

As I mentioned above, I ran all verions of nForce2 drivers including the one that came with the motherboard (NVidia nForce Chipset Drivers v2.00.01 ; Issue Date: 01/15/03)
I've experimented by loading them with and with-out the IDE SW drivers and with either SCSI host adapter.
With the IDE SW drivers installed my system is unstable (it keeps rebooting).
With Mwarhead remix v2.45, my system is unstable when I load the IDE SW drivers. But runs fine when I say no to loading the IDE SW drivers.
(But the "staggering" problem still exists when I play movies).
With remix v2.45a, the same thing happens as with the 2.45.
I tried the recent release v3.13 from nVidia... still no improvement.

Right now I'm running Mwarhead v2.45 remix without the IDE SW drivers installed. Also I've updated the audio divers to 614.0409.0 (4.09), control panel 1.00.00.0408 (4.08).

I've even experimented with fresh installs of XP with the APIC mode enable and disabled (in the BIOS setup). I still did not see any improvements. Read someplace on a forum that it might improve performance if it was disabled on a fresh install of xp. Thats why I tried it. Not sure what that's all about. But I have to try anything at this point.

My current install have the APIC disabled.

If I go to my Computer--properties--hardware--device manager, this is what I see:

Computer
-->Advanced configuration and power Interface (ACPI) PC

Network Adapter
-->1394 Net Adapter
--->NVIDIA nForce MCP Networking Controller

IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers
-->NVIDIA NFORCE MCP2 IDE Controller
-->Primary IDE channel
-->Secondary IDE Channel

SCSI and RAID Controllers
-->Adaptec AHA-2940U/2940UW PCI SCSI Controller
-->D344 RT SCSI Controller (I guess this is because of DAEMON Tools v3.44 that I have installed)

Audio Drivers Vers 6.14.0409.0 (4.09)
Control Panel 1.00.00.0408 (4.08)


Note I have also intalled Adaptec ASPI v4.60 (1021)

Thats pretty much the nuts and bolts of my system.

Again the problem I'm experiencing is that when I play a movie that is on my system (mpeg, avi, etc) the movie sometimes "staggers" or slow down (at that point I can hear the harddrive being active) I know that the scsi drives do make a lot of noise, but the second a movie starts to
stagger, thats when I hear HDD activity. But since this is a new drive that was sent to me, I now know it wasn't the HDD after all.


any help would be greatly appreciated.

Well, it seems to me that it's probably more of an operating system issue than a motherboard issue. Not trying to be rude at all, but you might find a bit more help over in the Windows section.

Don't install the IDE SW drivers - all of nVidia's IDE drivers are a joke...the extra performance gain you *might* get isn't worth the hassle.

Try uninstalling the Logitech drivers and seeing if the Windows drivers do any better. I've heard that Logitech drivers can be dodgy.

Try setting your pagefile to a static size also, if you haven't done so already. I believe there's a Windows issue in which .avi files can take 100% of the CPU for no real reason. Like I said, check in the Windows section or Google for it.

Aside from that...I have no idea.

Thanks, I'll try posting in the Windows section.

As you can see from my repeated attemps, I realized that the IDE SW drivers didn't help me.

I also posted in another forum, and some asked how confident was I about the avi, mpegs that I have on my system. Well they worked well before.

Come to think of it, they worked well when I didn't partitioned the 36.7 gig Atlas. I wonder if by partitioning the drive it had some effect on the play-back. But remember this is a new Atlas that I also partitioned. Stange that both drives would behave this way.

Thanks again for your response.