Computer lag every 2 seconds..

hmm.. diagnosed (spell check haha) this problem a bit more.. when the sound starts to skip and the 2 second skipping crap.. the cpu usage bounces back and forth.. for example if im typing on aim.. the usage is 8%.. then when i load WMplayer.. when it doesnt start to skip it stays around 15%.. then when it starts to skip it constantly bounces from 8% to 36%.. back up and down.. don't know what to do now.. thanks

also i noticed the pf usage is.. a yellow line when i hit ctrl +alt + delete it just stays there, but the cpu usage spikes up and down.. when the refresh rate is high

It is normal for it to bounce up high when first opening a program or maybe first loading a song to play or some such.
But like on my machine, when I opened Winamp, it jumped to in the 30s or 40s percent just for a second while loading the app. And when I play a song but not do anything else and just let it play, it hovers at under 5% while playing. So if yours "hovers" at over 10% but jumps a lot to over 30% and higher, then there is a problem, of course.

In Task manager on the Processes tab, try as good as you can to visually monitor the whole list in the CPU column and see if any process is the one regularly taking the CPU usage up high.
If none of those process are taking your CPU when it spikes, then it usually comes down to a corrupt driver or a bad kernel process or DLL. Anything that ISN'T listed as a process in that list but is still "running", somewhere. Hard to track down.

I didn't want to re-read the whole thread but do you have a laptop? Did you check the power managment? Make sure it isn't set to "Portable/Laptop" but set it to always on or home office desk.

And also, did you try Safe Mode? I mean, does the system CPU usage spike while in Safe Mode? If it doesn't, then it may still be a driver issue of sorts.

If you still don't have any ideas, I'll have to reread the thread and think about things again and go from there.

hmm.. well the cpu usage bounces up and down when it starts to lag.. and my hard drive light pops up red when it does.. i used 2 different hard drives..with a fresh formatted windows xp home OEM .. and when i play everquest i alt tab to the desktop lets say and i go to the cpu usage it bounces up from 18-46% or something like that.. it bounces CONSTANTLY . and the hard drive light blinks.. i dont know what to do i uninstalled every piece of hardware put it back in and use the latest drivers.. checked the power mangement its set to home/office desk.. and it IS a desktop not a laptop.. the only IDE devices i have are a Toshiba CD-ROM and a hard drive thats about it.. thanks for replying vigi.. let me know if you have AIM/MSN/YAHOO so i can easily contact you =/ .

EDIT. going to install everything over again. =[. format time.

okay so now i formatted freshly.. partitioned now instead of doing 1 drive only.. my 60GB is back into place so i formatted as follows:

18GB C: / 42GB D:
E:/CD drive

i was told that by partitioning and putting the SWAP file on a different drive such as D: it would greatly improve my performance and not conflict anything.. as my ram is 512, i changed it to 1.5 times my ram size so its 768MB. and D: drive is a blank NTFS drive, only C has windows on it, D: is my storage drive, and C: is just windows while i install everything onto D: C is blank.

NOW.. back to the lagging issue.. it greatly imrpoved my performance, i see less of the computer lag, but when it happens it happens for short durations .. lets see if im playing Everquest or Counter-strike it lags every 2 seconds for a period of ... 30 seconds then goes away and comes back.. any ideas? thanks

Putting your swap file on a different hard drive can improve your performance. It won't improve much, if any, if it's on a 2nd partition, but same hard drive. It can help a bit though.

Is the lag better or worse when playing online? If you are completely disconnected from the Internet and playing offline, single player, is it better? If so, I would suspect your network card.
Otherwise, the next thing we need to do is try another video card if we can.

Also turn your video options way down in the games until it looks like junk, and see if it plays better.

You're getting closer but after all you've done, we have to suspect hardware problems. HDD is ruled out now as well as XP. You used all "latest" drivers right? As in, downloaded from the manufacturers web site?
So try video card next if you can find one as good or better then yours.

second hd?

try getting a second hd. that might help.

my comp used to do the same thing but it was like evry 3 min. after second hd it ran smoothly....i still have a RAM problem though

hmm . i might add a second HD.. i have my 20GB laying around but.. i dont have another cord to attach it too.. and when i played counter-strike zero.. offline it was running perfect, maybe it is the lan card? i disabled the onboard LAN and using the nic card that YAHOO gave me.. in zero it doesnt lag when i play but when i load it up the mouse is fine but i feel a little bit in starting up.. tried replacing the nic card but i dont see any difference? . thanks for reply.

Getting on to page 3 now I'm having trouble remembering every suggestion. But since it runs better offline and runs better with a different NIC. Well what is next in the chain? Do you have a router or a switch, hub, something else we could remove?

putting a swap file on a different hard drive will also help with fragmenting.

Hehe thanks Ted, tried that what i posted earlier. =)

well some new info.. i was reading about IRQ's and interrupts etc.. and i checked my system information and checked IRQ's etc..i have found 3 devices on IRQ slot 5.. im wondering if this is a problem? also in my system information it says i have some conflicts under conflicts/sharing.. let me post a screenshot

wow, the IRQs do look off. Your video card shouldn't be sharing an IRQ with your NIC! Especially IRQ5. IRQ5 is reletively lower priority. But anyhoo, the rest of it is okay except for that IRQ5.

Try to get the NIC to a different IRQ. Here is mine, just in contrast:


Oh and also, my video card uses IRQ 16, the NIC uses 20. But XP is supposed to dish that out properly.

so whats your suggestion on how to fix that? hehe, move the nic card around?

Normally you can change resources from Device Manager. But since XP and Plug n Play, it doesn't let you have a resources tab any more. At least, it doesn't have a resources tab for my network card. Because it's all done with PnP.

BUT, you BIOS can have an entry for setting IRQs to specific PCI or devices. Check your BIOS and make sure ALL assignments are automatic. Or at least maybe see if the BIOS has your NIC at IRQ 5, and change it if for some reason it can't be auto.
Same for you video. But still, set it all to auto. And come to think of it, if you have a setting in the BIOS called "Plug and Play OS" or something similar, make sure it is YES.

If you do see a problem in the BIOS, and change it, if XP doesn't change automatically, then delete the NIC from Device Manager and let XP reload it again on restart, maybe it'll grab a different IRQ.

good luck

k will try, but atm i uninstalled it and am using Onboard LAN.. dont think if i uninstalled the nic card it should run fine?is there even a problem in my IRQs in the first place ya think? k thanks

I barely understood your post. lol

I'd say there IS a problem with IRQs if your NIC is sharing with video. That's just wrong. Both of those devices would require pretty heafty demands during online play in a game. And having them BOTH try to use the same IRQ while playing?! I think not!

Check System Info again and see if there are any conflicts like that with the onboard instead.
Remember to check BIOS.

Hmm barely understood my post.. well let me clarify hehe, sorry. I took out my NIC card, and switched back to using the Onboard LAN. I enabled it in BIOS, and everything ran the same ( with the lag etc ). Now I messed with the BIOS.. ( well looked around ) and saw the IRQs.. it says a list for example

IRQ device [PCI] 1 through all the way to 15 or so.. i reserved IRQ 5, and now it looks like this..

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OK, so you reserved 5. So XP swaps you IRQs around. It's good that they aren't shared any more. But you didn't say if game is still bad after that? I assume so.

IRQ 3 for video is still a pretty low priority. But at this point I don't think that is the big issue.

Have you run any kind of hardware tests yet?

memtest86 for RAM
cpu stability test for CPU
Manufacturer's drive tools for your hard drive (look up at manu's respective web site)

After all you've done, I'm leaning towards hardware issues. Can we find another video card to swap?

HM swapped the Ati Radeon 9550 to a Geforce 4 MX 400. I uninstalled the ati drivers of course, and installed the Nvidia ones.. no luck.. i'm leaning more towards hardware problems too, i dont have any PCI slots used, only an AGP , and onboard sound atm, im guessing it would be the ram.. i found out its really slow, PC2100 (266mHZ).. gonna try to get a 3200 stick today if i can afford it.. money budget not so great atm.. =/

Very interresting. Surprised the video card didn't at least change things.

As for your RAM, you have PC2100 now, what can your mobo support? Remember that the FSB of your CPU matters as well.

For example, my motherboard supports FSB400, I bought RAM that was DDR400 also. But my CPU was 333fsb. So it clocked down my RAM until I bought another CPU that supported 400mhz and everything got in sync. You can buy faster RAM IF your mobo supports it, but it won't help a ton if your CPU fsb is slower and clocks it back down.
But if you suspect RAM I would first suggest testing it with memtest86, and then if it's good, loosen your RAM timings in BIOS.

alright i tried it, sorry i havent replied in a bit trying to do everything to this darn computer, don't see whats the problem still. i've yet to wait for my new ram to come in.. my CPU FSB is 800MHZ. and im pretty sure it supports DDR400MHZ. well i get back to ya . thanks