More puter problems....:(

[Atmo]

Some of you may have read the thread about the crashing problems i was having after installing a usb2 card. Well the problem wasnt anything to do with that, my motherboard was the cause. Possibly static damage, but im usually pretty careful.

Anyways, i've put in an msi kt3 ultra2 (ddr333) motherboard and new ram which has solved the crashing problem, but has introduced another one.

The system has develloped a really annoying stutter in 2d and 3d, every few seconds it just hangs for a moment, then starts up again, watching the cpu usage level in task manager shows it jumping up to 100% when this happens, then settling back to normal. Its like something is grabbing all the resources every few seconds. Its not unstable at all, the only crash so far was due to a dodgy soundcard driver (which has been rectified).

I have the most up to date via 4 in 1 drivers, video card drivers, bios etc. Reinstalled xp twice, checked for virus', checked and rechecked every setting in the bios, tried removing all cards, disconnecting all drives except for one hard drive. It happens in safe mode also.

Benchmarking the system gives some really strange results. Cpu performance is way down. At 1400 (stock) it benchmarks slower than a 1100, yet ram benchmarks are great.

As you can probably guess, this is extremely frustrating, this is all new hardware, running in spec (nothing overclocked)....So if anyone has any suggestions on what to try next i'd really like to hear it.

Heres some current specs.

Msi kt3 ultra2
768mb pc2100 ddr (tried each stick individually)
AMD athlon 1400
Asus geforce4 ti4400
Topower 420watt ps

Bios ver 550
Nvidia detonator xp drivers (ver 23.11-30.82 tried)
Via 4 in 1 drivers (ver 4.37-4.22 tried)

Any help would be appreciated.

[Scar Da Kookee]

down grade to Win98 for the time being (make backups if you can)

reinstall drivers, then try to see if problem as gone away...

other then that i wouldnt know...

[dam]

Weird problem. Very weird.

[Atmo]

Originally posted by Scarface2k2
down grade to Win98 for the time being (make backups if you can)

No, i'd rather buy a new computer than go back to win98. I believe this problem is fixable. The only thing i can think of that i havent tried yet is checking for an updated vga bios from asus, but i really dont think that would be the cause.

[edit] just checked the asus site, no updated vga bios available [/edit]

[Curi0us_George]

Assuming that you did a clean install . . .

Take out the USB card. See if that stops the problem. If so, you've got some sort of incompatability still, or possibly just a bad card.

If that doesn't fix it, see if you can borrow a graphics card from a friend and see if that fixed the problem. If it does, there may be an incompatability between the card and something else or, once again, a faulty card.

[Atmo]

tried removing all cards, disconnecting all drives except for one hard drive.

With just the motherboard (with all onboard functions disabled), video card and one hard drive it still stutters. And yes, i did a clean install.

The video card itself is fine, but i will see if i can try another card in it, just to completely remove it from the equation.

I cant find anything on google that might help, neither via, msi or asus' websites have any info describing the problem.

One more thing, when overclocking via the fsb (even by a small ammount) and booting in safe mode, the system stops when trying to load mup.sys (which loads after viaagp.sys)...It doesnt crash, as when booting normally the startup logo still animates, it just sits there doing nothing. Even with ultra tame ram settings it happens, yet running the fsb at stock speed with agressive ram timing it boots fine.

Coincidence, or are these problems related??

[eleet-2k2]

I'd try to downgrade to Win98 to see if the problems fix themselves. That would be wise because then if they do, you know that something in WinXP is the cause of the problems.

Follow Curious's advice to see what your problems could be.

Other than that, I can't really think what could be done to help. Sorry.

[edit]The 'burps' you're experiencing could be due to your hard drive. Try installing WinXP clean on a different drive than the one you are booting off of now to see if that fixes the problems.[/edit]

[Atmo]

Well, i've fixed it. The problem was something to do with the pci latency, installing the george breese patch sorted it.

Seems rock solid now, hasnt crashed in a couple of days, so it must be time to do some overclocking and benchmarking [insert evil grin here].