pausing for a few secs when playing games and watching videos

[wired14]

the topic says it all

whenever i play games or watching videos on my computers it will pause for like 5 secs and then it will be ok


whats causing it?




winXP
256 memory

 

[redduc900]

winXP 256 memory

What are your complete system specs in it's entirety?

 

[wired14]

Asus p4t533-c mobo, 256rdram, P4 2.5gh oc'verclocked to 2.85ghz, 80gb maxtor and 120gb maxtor, and nvidia geforce 4 mx440

 

[redduc900]

How about things like...
1. Do you have SP1/SP1a installed, including all critical and recommended updates for your system?
2. Version of chipset drivers installed?
3. Version of video card drivers?
4. Make and model of RAM, including memory timings.
5. Does the in-game "pause" occur even when not OC'd?
6. When did the problem start?
7. Onboard sound or PCI sound card, including make and model.

...you get the idea. In other words, we'll need to know as much about your system as possible.

 

[wired14]

How about things like...
1. Do you have SP1/SP1a installed, including all critical and recommended updates for your system?
2. Version of chipset drivers installed?
3. Version of video card drivers?
4. Make and model of RAM, including memory timings.
5. Does the in-game "pause" occur even when not OC'd?
6. When did the problem start?
7. Onboard sound or PCI sound card, including make and model.

...you get the idea. In other words, we'll need to know as much about your system as possible.

1. SP1 installed and updated
2,3 Latest drives are installed
4Kingston 256s rambus rdram i do not know the timings
5 i overclocked it couples monthes ago
6 around 1 mounth ago or so
PCI sound card, Soundblaster live pci 16bit with latest drives
onboard sound is disabled

 

[Fiz]

Does this only happen with games and video, or does it happen no matter what you are doing? I would check to see if there is a prog or service running in the background that may be causing this. Perhaps you may also want to try disabling some of the things in your rig (soundcard, NIC, etc...) and see if that helps.

Fiz

 

[wired14]

it does it not only with videos and games but anyother time too . I think it is something with the hard drive because i can hear it making a noise like when it cmes out of "stand by"

 

[poweriu]

Ah ha, I've seen something like this before. The hard drive may have a poor connection (try a new cable) or a different molex from your power supply. Also, use a multi-meter to check the voltage your power supply is putting out to the HDD. If the power supply is having trouble getting to 12V or, the 5V line may cause it too, but probably 12V, the hard drive will tend to spin down and back up again. It has enough power to keep the CPU from crashing, but the system pauses while trying to restart the HDD.

It could also be a problem with the drive itself, if you try these things and it doesn't help, try the drive in a different system and see if it exhibits the same problem.

 

[Th0r]

and make sure that you have not got a PCI card in the first slot... had this problem before... I had to move all my cards down one slot.... Its because the IRQ is linked with the Graphics card...

 

[wired14]

i believe it is not the hard drive because the 80gb has the operating system and the 120gb drive has all the movies. It pauses when i play a game loaded from the 80gb and when i watch a movie from the 120gb.
i checked for IRQ conflicts under device manager and every pci card has its own and different IRQ number. All pci slots have a card so i can not move them .
I am watching the +12V from Asus probe utility right now and it displays this : 11.977 for the +12V , 5.026 for the +5V , 3.264 for the +3.3V and 1.054 for the Vcore. What do these numbers mean ?

I do not know how to test the power supply. i do not have the proper tools but even if i did , i would burn something

I will try a different cable tomorrow though ....

 

[poweriu]

Hmm... those numbers should be good enough not to cause a spin-down and restart. Try watching them closely and see if anything changes just before or just after a freeze. Also, just because your OS/games and movies are on separate hard drives doesn't prevent one from affecting the other. As far as the IRQ of the first PCI slot being linked with that of the AGP, I don't believe that is an issue with newer boards/chipsets (though I may be wrong). I think it came from the i440BX days.

 

[Fiz]

Have you tried bringing up talk manager and seeing if the proc usage spikes at all? If not, give it a shot and see what service or prog is causing the spike and shut it down.

Fiz

 

[wired14]

talk manager? what is that?>

 

[Grande Juan]

I think Fiz meant, task manager. Hit Alt/Ctrl/Delete at the same time and it will pop up. Do you mean to say that the video image pauses for a full five seconds?

 

[Fiz]

LOL!!! Oops, I meant task manager. Sorry, been one of those days.

 

[wired14]

not really five secs but more like 2-3 secs

 

[Grande Juan]

Wow two or three seconds is still a very long pause. Have you checked for a virus? When is the last time you defraged? I would say get more memory and a better video card but everthing was working to your satifaction up until a month ago. Did you change hardware or install new software recently like a month ago? What did task manager show?

 

[wired14]

Wow two or three seconds is still a very long pause. Have you checked for a virus? When is the last time you defraged? I would say get more memory and a better video card but everthing was working to your satifaction up until a month ago. Did you change hardware or install new software recently like a month ago? What did task manager show?

yes, more memory is the next thing im getting. I will get 1gig. and after that its the video gard that i will be upgrading. I have a feeling its the low memory ( 256 ) and the old model video gard i have that causes this but i cant explain it . No, i did not install anything in that 1 month, and its not a virus.
task manager showed very low CPU usage .