Brand new AMD XP 2100, GeForce 4 Ti4400, 1gig DDRAM randomly pauses

[DavidBeoulve]

Aside from the fun with my wife's PC's power supply dying, my new PC is giving me trouble. In any game I run and in the middle of the Operating System it will randomly pause for 3 to 5 seconds and then continue. I've updated my Nvidia drivers and Motherboard drivers. I'm running Windows XP Professional.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-7VRXP Raid Socket A DDR Retail Box
CPU: AMD Athlon™ XP 2100 1.73GHz Socket A OEM
CPU Fan: Thermaltake Volcano 9 Socket A Variable Fan Speed Control
Videocard: AGP MSI GeForce4 Ti 4400 128Mb DDR TV/DVI Retail Box
RAM: 2x 512Mb DDR333 PC2700 (1Gb Total) Double-Data Rate, 333mhz
Hard Drive: 80Gb ATA100 WD 7200rpm
DVD Drive: 16 X Toshiba DVD-Rom IDE OEM
Floppy Drive: 1.44Mb 3.5 Samsung Floppy Drive OEM
Case: ATX Deluxe MidTower 400W P.S. w/2 Front USB
Fans (extra): 2x Case Cooling Fans
Keyboard: PS2 Windows Keyboard
Mouse: PS2 Optical Scroll Mouse
OS: Windows XP Professional
Hitachi CM823FB Black

Now the Gigabyte Motherboard has a Promise RAID controller that Windows XP didn't understand for the longest time, and it complained a lot. I got the drivers installed from the CD and it seemed to quiet down. I thought the pauses might be due to it, however, and I disabled RAID in the BIOS, but there's no change.

I also thought it might be my Nvidia drivers, so I used the MSI Driver CD and then Nvidia's drivers to no avail.

What could be causing these pauses? Oftentimes starting up a program will just pause, or submitting a webpage, or switching between windows. I can't be sure if the pausing is random or in synch with what is going on. My mouse will move but nothing responds, and then like lightning everything catches up.

Any ideas/assistance greatly appreciated.

http://www.afn.org/~afn26470/

 

[Neo81]

hmmm could it be something to do with your virtual memory ? how is that part setup??? have you told windows to use a certain amount or is windows configuring that automaticly ? I have pretty much the same setup but only 256ddr ram

Later
NEo81 >:O>

 

[stuartd]

I had this when I recently installed GF2 Ultra.

I had hardware monitors/AV program/software firewall/various other servers loaded in the background. When I killed all of these applications, my stuttering in games was cured.

 

[paparazi]

I have to agree and say it is likely that something running in the background is causing your problem,
you could pinpoint this by a process of ellimination, use sellective startup to turn off background programs one at a time etc.
Martin Please let members know if there advice has helped any.

 

[DavidBeoulve]

Oddly enough I played with some drivers and it's not doing it now. I have a new thought... CD protection.

When I have games with CD protection in this Toshiba DVD-Rom things stutter (like Morrowind). Cracked NO-CD games were stuttering but since the resent slew of driver updates they appear not to be.

However, SafeDisced games are, and some backup game CDs that work fine on one PC with a CD-ROM or different DVD-ROM work but not on my new PC.

I buy all my games guys, I really do (I like manuals, support, being honest, etc) but I also like playing from backups as I have kids and things don't last long. If you have them you'll understand.

At any rate, this new PC doesn't appear to be pausing now. I did disable some MSI Nvidia controller, so that might have been it as well, and the stuttering on SafeDisced games another issue?

http://www.afn.org/~afn26470/

 

[bluescreen77]

TRY TO:
1)UPDATE YOUR BIOS FROM "GIGABYTE" (7vrxp_f11.zip)
2)DOWNLOAD&INSTALL THE LATEST VIA "4in1" DRIVERS (4in1443v.exe)
3)DOUBLE-CHECK YOUR BIOS SETTINGS
4)CHECK FOR VIRUSES
5)DISABLE "TSR" (background programs)

(NOTE FROM GIGABYTE: "A latest BIOS and driver update are required in order to run Windows® XP stably".)
R.T.F.M.
ftp://download.intel.com/support/processors/manuals/tsPCguide.pdf

 

[leonec]

Its probably XP!

 

[DavidBeoulve]

My God bluescreen69 that is a helpful post, I can't believe how stupid I feel overlooking the obvious but I didn't know "A latest BIOS and driver update are required in order to run Windows® XP stably".

THANK YOU.

Let me go do this and I'll post the results back here.

http://www.afn.org/~afn26470/

 

[DavidBeoulve]

Okay okay, I found the BIOS upgrade here. You giving me the exact name made that a SNAP in Google.

http://tw.giga-byte.com/support/viakt333.htm

I found the VIA 4in1 here:

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

Just so you know what I installed, precisely, and any other Gigabyte owner's gratification and linkage.

I'll be back shortly.

http://www.afn.org/~afn26470/