Periodic 1 sec lag/stutter - New discovery.

I was never paying attention to this before but -


I was staring at my screen while playing WoW - then I looked at the hard drive activity indicator - even when the computer remains, and nothing new loads on the screen, I keep the FPS monitor on. The EXACT instant that the fps drops momentarily, there is activity.

There are NO processes that would trigger HDD activity in task manager. Anti-virus and firewall temporarily disabled during gaming. HDD set to DMA mode.

I ran HDTune (rigorious scan). All sectors came out clean - did a MemTest for about 4 hours - came out clean.


XP SP2 - Dual Core Fix Applies, /usepmtimer boot.ini fix

Not sure if its a driver issue (I am using 163.67) - Haven't updated to 163.67 yet.

Could a non-upgraded sound driver cause this to occur?

Also in the BIOS, there is a HDD Accoustic Option there - it was set on Bypass, but I changed it to performance.

I hope I have included a drill down of the problem.

I did a fresh install of XP as well.

Thanks.

 

What connectivity options do you have on your computer? I remember an old notebook with an infrared port that would stutter every few seconds as the IR did a search for new devices, and I assume wireless and bluetooth cards could cause the same problem as they try to update available devices.

 

Wireless. I am like 7 inches from the router. 54 mbps, excellent signal.

I've used Dell Wireless AND the WZC from Windows.

 

Try using an ethernet cord and turning your wireless off to see if the stutter stops. It may not, but it's always a possibility that the wireless card is doing periodic site surveys that are causing a temporary resource drain.

 

Well I read up on that. It mainly does that on WZC, since it scans for new SSID's every so often. With the Dell Wireless Software, and by disabling QoS Packet Scheduler (Or should I recheck that), it should no longer scan.

 

Actually, the QoS Packet Scheduler shouldn't have anything to do with site surveys...it just tries to prioritize what data goes where. You may still want to test running hardwired, just to absolutely rule out the wireless card. Beyond that, however, have you run full virus and spyware scans? It's always possible you've got a piece of malware phoning home every so often.

 

Yes I've done full runs. Nothing showed up

 

The easiest way to see what is going on at the time of stutter is with Process Monitor ( http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/processesandthreads/processmonitor.mspx ). If there is a process that it making a lot of requests during the stutter, that is where it is coming from.

 

Sound drivers and associated files do have an effect on video performance. Tests have shown that people who have used the external sound blaster cards in their notebooks get higher fps then when they use the default installed sound. I had an old RPG that used Miles Sound system files and had studdering when I deleted and uninstalled all Miles Sound system files from the system (including those built into the game) the studdering stopped (and yes I still had sound). As an extension of troubleshooting from a sound perspecitve try turning off all sound settings in the game and see what happens, then (if that doesn't do any good try uninstalling your sound drivers (so you have none installed) and play the game, and see if there is still a problem. If neither of those fix the problem then the sound card/drivers is unlikely to be the problem.

Switching the hard drive option to performance should boost your hard drive speed, so that is a step in the correct direction.

If you have your desktop set to run in 32-bit, 24-bit, or 16-bit colors try changing it to one of the other ones and see if that improves preformance at all. (Some graphics cards are built to function at one color depth better than the others, and some games are programmed to work at one color setting as opposed to the other).

Do you have both hard drive indexing and super-fetch set to disabled as well (since they are known to access the hard drive at random times)?

 

I will try it. If anyone has any other suggestions within the next 2 hours, I'd like to try out all of the solutions. I'll first try updating my sound and graphics card drivers, then go in the order that solutions are proposed.

 

Wait, let me get this straight. You having the stuttering in XP not in Vista? Your HDD light comes on whenever it stutters? The problem I'm having is in Vista and the HDD light does not turn on when it stutters. The stuttering continues on reguardless. Are you able to play HD video like quicktime trailers in HD without it crapping out on you?

 

I can play HD video just fine. It is ONLY when gaming that it occurs. Stutter = Blinking HD activity light, even when nothing is going on. Can't figure it out!

 

XP or Vista?

 

XP SP2 (in sig)

 

HD indexing and superfetch are enabled.

 

BTW, I have this exact problem on my desktop... I've tried basically everything from installing RivaTuner and changing some settings to updating my sound driver... Still get the frame skip every minute or so in Counterstrike Source

 

yeah what can we do