Strange pause/stutter problem in XP Pro!

[Silverwolf 0]

Hi,

 

Im having a problem where Win XP Pro seems to "stutter" at regular 1 second intervals.

At first I thought it was just with 3D graphics in games but, I later noticed it happening while scrolling down a window in internet explorer.

Its rather like running a program while you've got a system scan running with a virus scan program.

I've tried tweaking, turning of USB devices, disabling the sound card, disablinig the net card, changing bios settings, turning AGP down, altering the page file size and nothing seems to get rid of it. The only thing I found that helped with the games was running the .exe at a high priority level in the task manager but, that doesn't help with the whole system pausing.

I've turned off all the services that aren't needed and that doesn't help either.

 

This is my system spec:

 

Athlon 1.33ghz cpu,

Epox KTA3 Pro motherboard,

512MB PC133 ram,

40gb IBM 60GXP ATA100 HDD,

Galaxy Sound Fortisimo 1 sound card,

Gainward Leadtek Geforce 2 MX400 32MB gfx,

Linksys 10/100 network card.

Latest drivers for everything are installed.

 

I've tried with and without the latest VIA 4in1's, the USB patch (including the latest 1.10) and old video card drivers. Also tried the drivers off microsofts site.

I've turned off system restore and everything else thats not really needed and ive tried it with a NTFS and FAT32 install. I've tried it dual boot with Win98SE (which btw has NO problems at all) and installed on its own. The pause is always there.

Please, anybody got any ideas about this? Any help appreciated!

[Imperium97 0]

I really have no idea but it sounds similar to this:

 

http://www.tweakxp.com/TweakXP/display.asp?id=822

 

I hope that helps out.

[Silverwolf 0]

No sorry. I tried that and it made no difference.

Thanks though!

[CyberGenX 0]

Try pulling cards i.e. netcard, modem, sound until it stops. If it doesn't stop, try disabling IRQs like parallel and serial. Also try disabling USB IRQ. If your problem stops then it is that device. If not you may have a SW problem. Disable everything that starts up with windows, if no luck there...sorry I tried.

[Silverwolf 0]

Problem solved.

I turned off the USB and parallel ports in bios and low and behold the stutter problem stopped. I was hoping it would be the parallel port causing the trouble and not the USB ports as ive a lot of USB devices. To my surprise and relief it turns out it was the parallel port.

It was set to EPP mode. Soon as I changed it to "normal" mode and re-enabled it the problem was still gone. Sorted!

Thanks folks!

[CyberGenX 0]

Glad to help! I've seen that problem in the field and it is usually USB related. Nice tech work.