[Prodigious]

So I have a new pc, i7 920, 6 gigs of ram, an hd4850, auzentech forte soundcard, and 2 640gb WDs in raid 0. Im using vista 64. I have no legacy hardware or anything. a mouse and kb hooked up via usb, 2 hdds via sata and an sata dvd burner. My gfx card and sound card are both pci-e.

Now I've been having an issue where audio and video will stutter for a split second. It's usually nothing more than a skipped frame or some crackling/popping noise. I couldnt figure out what it was until I dled a system latency monitoring utility, and I saw that everything coresponded to jumps in latency. When there was moderate but not alarmingly high latency, video would skip a frame and when the latency goes off the charts, my audio stutters.

The problem is, I can't find any vista 64 compatible utilities to help me find what's actually causing it. The monitoring program just gives a general overview of system latency.

I've tried disabling things here and there in the device manager, but there's certain things which I obviously can't just turn off, like hardrive controllers and such.

Is it probably a driver issue, or could it be a sign of hardware failure? And what would be the best way to go about finding out? It seems like 64bit vista really closes a lot of doors when it comes to useful tweaks and utilities like xp has.

[GameSinewPCs]

This sounds to me to be more of a driver related issue, though that is not definitive. Can you replicate the problem by performing certain tasks or is it somewhat sporadic. Try and isolate the cause of the latency jumps. Also, try uninstalling ALL of your drivers (motherboard, gpu, sound etc) and then reinstall them (make sure you're installing them properly, in the right order and up to date versions).

[Prodigious]

It's not really predictable. It can happen at full load or while idle. But it does happen frequently enough that it's an issue. What would be the best order for trying to reinstall everything? MY drivers are up to date, but I also tried rolling back to the ones that shipped with my computer to see if that would make a difference.

Should I go chipset > gfx card > sound card?

[GameSinewPCs]

Yes, that order should be fine. Also, check your driver providers' websites for updated drivers for each device. If the flashes continue after that, try flashing the bios (update to the most recent version).

[red_zary]

i'm having the same thing. system stutter for 1/4 sec every few.i tried many different o/s. psu, gpu, hdd is fine. also updating bios took me over 2hrs.
i did RMA mobo. not sure how long it will take or if it will solve issue ;/

i7 920
evga x58
3x2GB corsair dominator 1600
evga gtx285 ssc
corsair 1000W

[GameSinewPCs]

I've encountered this issue quite a few times and almost every time it involves improperly installed graphics drivers, though of course this may not be the case for both you you. Sometimes it requires a complete reformat/re installation of all drivers.

[red_zary]

but it's happening all the time regardless of o/s or drivers.

[ratbuddy]

Wasn't there a patent lawsuit relating to PCI latency or something recently where Intel and other mobo makers were sending out BIOS updates that were non-infringing but can cause issues like this?

edit: I misremembered http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?p=1041858

edit again: Oh yeah, I had a similar situation when I recently reinstalled Vista. I have 64-bit Ultimate (thanks, Windows feedback program) that does not include SP1 on disc. Got stutter I just couldn't fix, and was ready to shoot the system, till I realized SP1 hadn't auto-installed yet. A manual install of SP1 cleared up all stutter problems. Just something else to try..

[red_zary]

thing is i tried vista 32 bit with sp1, vista 64 bit with sp1, xp he sp2, xp pro 64bit, bootable win2003. everywhere the same.

[GameSinewPCs]

A couple of things to try:

1. Try each stick of memory individually and in different slots.

2. If you have an alternative GPU (onboard or PCI-e) to try, then plug that in, install its drivers and see if you can replicate the issue.

3. Try reseating the CPU.

-on a side note, what are you system temps looking like?

[red_zary]

1. i tried each memory stick - still the same
but...i am able to set just one at the time to their factory default 8-8-8-24-74-1T
as soon as i will try to do this with all of them, can't boot up.
2. gpu is fine, i checked different one.
3.tried that as well as running mobo outside the chassis.
psu, hdd, optical and cables are checked/replaced

sys temps are fine: idle cores between 30-40, stressed around 50.
(Noctua NH-U12P + both fans, push-pull)

[GameSinewPCs]

The memory issue you mentioned sounds a bit odd. If you have another set of memory that you can use (a friend let you borrow some?) try those.