Choppy mouse and sound...

[orjazmik]

This one is really plauguing me... not to mention driving me nuts. Here's my current system configuration:

ASUS A7V133-C MB (w/ built-in Promise Ultra 100)
Athlon XP 1700
256 MB PC-133 SDRAM
IBM 40GB Desktar HD
Sony 16x CD-RW
Toshiba 6X DVD-ROM
PNY GeForce 4
3COM 3c905-tx
Adaptec Firewire Card
Sound Blaster Live 5.1

I used to run Win2K on this machine no problems... I then upgraded to WinXP and ran on that problem free for a few months. I decided to scale down some, and go back to win2k. So I formatted the drive did a fresh build of Win2k, and now I'm having the following two symptoms:

1. About every 30 - 120 seconds, the mouse gets really jerky (mouse will stop moving for a sec, then leap across the screen). I can't seem to correlate this with any particular system activity. This starts happening before I even load any drivers or software other than the OS.

2. When I play sounds (wav's, mp3's, etc) they skip or get choppy every few seconds. Doesn't seem to matter even if the file is on the local HD.

I know these are somewhat minor annoyances, but they are slowly driving me crazy. I have done numerous OS rebuilds, managed to get all devices on different IRQ's (by installing a non-ACPI version of Win2K), tried a different HD, sound card, and network card so far. I've run with minimal hardware. I've loaded the latest service pack and all the update patches. I'm about two steps away from attacking the major components (CPU, memory, MB), but I was hoping someone might have some suggestions other than this trial and error approach I'm forced to take at the moment. Any input is appreciated. Thanks a bunch...

- Marshall

 

[Dmasch]

Move your speakers as far away from your mouse as possible. You are getting interference. That will solve both of your problems :>

 

[orjazmik]

I guess just for my own personal edification, I have to ask... If I was running XP and 2000 before just fine... and my speakers haven't moved at all, why didn't I have this problem before now? Also... I don't quite understand why this would make my WAV's and MP3's skip as well. I do appreciate the input however...

 

[Dmasch]

I don't know the answers to those quesions. I just had a client that was having similar problem to yours and his speakers were sitting by the mouse cord, had him move his speakers to the other side of his desk and it fixed his problem. He like you was not having problems for months and one day just started happening. Went there moved the speakers and his cd's played fine and the mouse didnt jerk all over the place. Was hoping the same would work for you. If moving the speakers doesnt work, you might want to try and remove the sound card and unplug the speakers and see if the mouse resumes normal function. Then troubleshoot from there. Good Luck

 

[Accessdabbler]

Make sure DMA is enabled. By default, Win2K sets your IDE controllers to PIO Mode instead of Ultra DMA. You set this in the Device Manager > IDE Controllers > Primary IDE Controller > Properties

 

[orjazmik]

Thanks guys... I will give both of these a try tonight. Appreciate the help.

 

[gargouille]

First thing I'd do would be turn down video acceleration with the slider in System/Performance...mouse and sound (especially with SB) have problems in tandem (perhaps reciprocally?)

There's another possibility:

Spread spectrum...a little-known less understood BIOS setting may be helpful to you.
Look in your motherboard manual for it.

Quoted from Jason Chue, in another newsgroup:

[[Spread Spectrum allows motherboard to reduce RF emissions that produce radio interference.

It means that the system clock is "modulated" or continuously shifted back and forth in a small amount (usually not more than +/-0.75% of nominal
clock frequency). This option helps to spread the energy of the Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) generated by the motherboard over a wider range of frequencies to make it easier to pass FCC RFI/EMI emissions requirements.

Unless you really have "radio" problems you should better disable it.

Also, it should be disabled when you overclock the CPU. ]]

 

[orjazmik]

Thanks for all your help guys, but I think I have found the problem. It looks like my MB is hosed. I had an Athlon 850 laying around, so I put that in just to see if my proc was the problem. Well the machine froze right on post. And it started overheating. Then I put my 1700 back in, and the same thing happens. Pretty soon it gets so bad that I smell stuff burning... and that's when I pretty much wrote the board off. So it looks like I'll be getting new parts this Christmas.