Glitches caused by Speed Step...I Think

Hi All

I've recently bought a Dell I6000d.
Pentium M 1.6Ghz
512MB Ram
128MB ATI Mobility Rameon X300
40GB 5400rpm HDD

It's a great mashine for all round basic applications, but I've run into one problem that I feel should not be. Maybe someone can shed some light on it for me.

I mainly play 2 games on the machine, Unreal 2004 and Colin Mcrae 2005. both the games are set to the lowest possible graphic settings, but still I get glitches in the game.

I find it hard that to believe that it could be the Graphics. So I've installed SpeedSwitchXP just to monitor the CPU Load vs CPU Speed. Even on Max Performance (on AC power) the CPU Speed dips below the CPU Load every 10 secs or so. Is that wat is causing my glitches or could it be something else?

 

define "glitches" ?

 

Glitches: Split second freezes in the graphics, input and controllers of the game, but the core of the games still continues. So you resume your game little bit less than a second later still heading on the same course and speed (in the case of Colin Mcrae) as before the glitch occured.

I've tried reinstalling, tried XP Home and XP Pro, I've updated teh bios and all the drivers, and still it keeps glitching.

 

hmmmm

i don't think it's a speedstep issue because the machine will automatically raise the clock speed as needed. i have basicaly the same setup as you except i have a 7.2k rpm HD. i've played both HL2 and Doom3 all the way through without any real issues. this was at the game recommended settings running in both 1680x1050 and fullscreen 1920x1200.

i would try disabling or uninstalling the SpeedSwitch utility and see if the problem continues. (unless you already did this?)

other things would be to turn everything else off; antivirus, background utilities, etc etc.

 

Thanks for your replies

I've discovered that it runs a little bit smoother when I run the games at my desktop resolution (1280x1040) and with all the settings on their defaults (medium), wich baffles me. I've killed any programs, apps and anything else I could find that was running and non-crutial to windows or the game and it still does the glitching thing. I've done a full dignostics on the HDD using the tool on Western Digital's site and it's passed all test. Could it be the diffirence between the 7200rpm and the 5400rpm? Does the dell replacemetn HDD's come with the recovery partition like the original drive?

 

i don't think it's the HD speed difference, that really only should affect the loading (which btw, takes a long time for me)

 

I've found a solution, but it doesn't make any sence to me what so ever. I did a re-install again, ( I can do it with my eyes closed by now!) only this time t thought..ah bugger it I'll do a Fat32 file system just for a laugh. Guess what!

No glitches in Colin Mcrae 2005, and no glitches in Unreal Tournament 2004!

I know Fat32 should be faster than NTFS on drives smaller than 32Gb, but I never thought it would make such a diffirence on a system.

 

wow.. good to know

 

Hmm interesting. I've reformated several times in the past and have stuck with NTFS, never tried Fat32. Wonder if it would work out same for a pc hardrive.