Consistent in-game lag spiking

[Wasp]

Not exactly what to put for specs...

Processor
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz Hyper-Threading

*
800 MHz Front side
*
Socket mPGA478

Motherboard
ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe with Intel 875p chipset
Memory
Comes with two 512MB (1GB total) PC3200 dual-inline Memory Modules.

*
Motherboard accepts DDR400/PC3200, DDR333/PC2700, or DDR266/PC2100 Dimms. Dual Channel supported only when identical pairs are used.
*
Motherboard contains four memory sockets in two pairs (sockets 1:3, and 2:4).
*
Upgradeable to a maximum of 4GB (Maximum of 1GB Dimm per slot).

Drives
NOTE: This product does not come with a floppy drive.

*
A USB 128MB portable flash drive
*
Two 120GB, serial ATA, 7200 rpm, hard drives using raid 0 (Windows uses as one 240GB drive)
*
48x/24x/48x/16x CDRW combination drive
*
4x DVD+R/RW drive

Drive bays

*
Four 5.25 drive bays for optical drives (three in use)
*
Six 3.5 drive bays for hard drives (three in use, three open)

Video
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra with 256MB memory, 8X AGP, with S-Video and DVI out.

Power
Antec TrueBlue 480W power supply for ATX style motherboards (provides blue lighting effects)

Supported operating system
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition

In games, not sure why just games, my computer freezes constantly, but never crashes or reboots or anything. Just, I will open up a game program, and it will freeze for ~8 seconds, sometimes I'll hear a struggling-whir noise from the tower. I will get control for 3 or 4 seconds, then it will freeze again, and it never ever ever ends. This is both offline and online. Games I have tried : Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and HL2. This began roughly two weeks before thanksgiving, and it's the 27th now, and I still haven't fixed this dirty sonofabitch problem. Four days ago, because I have a 3 year hardware warranty on this computer, I took it to compUSA (where I purchased it.) I just got it back today, and they didn't do anything. grrlgrlglrlgrglrglrglrgllrglrglrlglrgl that pissed me off. Anyways. When I got it back and began to boot it up, I noticed that on the back of the tower, the lower fan-thing was blinking blue light, whereas the top power supply fan was a solid blue light. I never noticed the flashing before, and once the comp is on, the flashing ceases and there is no blue light on the lower fan, but the power supply was blue. So I told this to some dumb**** techie at Compaq, and he said that as long as the powersupply is running, then the other fans are working. I don't believe this is a fan problem, because I get it back, turn it on, go into a game immediately, and it still freezes as usual. The power supply is also pretty cool. I have searched this forum for similar problems, closest being the Infinite Loop thing. Only, on the infinite loop, it reboots, or crashes. My games continue, just with extremelymother****ingfreezing.

Help me before I turn emooooooooooo!

Arrogantly, and with my cool new screen name, W.A.S.P.

 

[peterdiva]

See if there's anything here that might help.http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_13.html

 

[Wasp]

Response appreciated xD

Thanks.

Also, when I booted up the comp after school today, throughout the bootup and even now the bottom fan is blinking blue lighting and making scratchy noises. Problem = Fan related?


Problem===> :unch: <===me


Kay. This seems to be my problem :

Problem: Stuttering/Intermittently Freezing Graphics

Solution:

# Optimize your Windows memory settings (See Windows Optimization below)
# Check the Nvidia driver resource-reduction tips to turn off startup programs/unnecessary services
# Test your RAM (See Windows Optimization below)
# Defragment your hard drive
# Disable Fast Writes
# Tweak specific game settings - See below for a list of available game tweak guides
# Change AGP Aperture Size to 128MB
# Note: Follow all the advice in this guide, and in the Windows Optimization section below, but if you have a low amount of RAM (512MB or less) and/or a slow hard drive and/or a slow CPU/graphics card, you may not be able to avoid a certain amount of graphics stuttering due to loading pauses and components struggling to render the scene.

That is just a sample of the common problems, and common solutions to try when running into graphics-related issues. In general, most of the graphics and gaming problems I've heard of from readers and on various forums are due primarily to one or more of the following factors:

# Overclocking the system too far and/or not providing sufficient cooling. This is by far the most common cause.
# A system with one or more slow/weak components which are not capable of providing optimal performance, and fail regularly under stress.
# Sub-optimal settings in the BIOS, in Windows and in the game itself.

However, I have -no- idea what any of that means. Overclocking? BIOS? AGP? Uh?

 

[Sharkfood]

This sounds very, very much like the dreaded McAffee problem.

Do you have McAffee, Norton or other internet security/anti virus software installed? Even disabled, the problem will persist.

If you have the re-installation media and do have one of the above installed, you should UNINSTALL them completely for a test to see if it fixes your problem. If the problem goes away, you can then try to re-install/patch and enable/disable various services in these programs in hopes of finding a configuration that will not freeze your system regularly. Again- simply disabling them isn't usually enough to remove the long freezes/pauses.

Other software typical of this include: 3Deep and other color correction software. Various internet, palette correction and internet/firewall security software can cause the 7-8 second total freezes in games so it's most likely something you have installed.

You should also hit your Device Manager and look to see if you have DMA enabled on your Hard Disks. If you do not have DMA on the your HD's, games will also freeze the system similar to how you have expressed.

 

[Wasp]

Device Manager

This sounds very, very much like the dreaded McAffee problem.

Do you have McAffee, Norton or other internet security/anti virus software installed? Even disabled, the problem will persist.

If you have the re-installation media and do have one of the above installed, you should UNINSTALL them completely for a test to see if it fixes your problem. If the problem goes away, you can then try to re-install/patch and enable/disable various services in these programs in hopes of finding a configuration that will not freeze your system regularly. Again- simply disabling them isn't usually enough to remove the long freezes/pauses.

Other software typical of this include: 3Deep and other color correction software. Various internet, palette correction and internet/firewall security software can cause the 7-8 second total freezes in games so it's most likely something you have installed.

You should also hit your Device Manager and look to see if you have DMA enabled on your Hard Disks. If you do not have DMA on the your HD's, games will also freeze the system similar to how you have expressed.

Yeah, I have Norton.

Also, on my Primary IDE Channel it shows :
Device 0
Device Type : Auto Detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode : Not Applicable
Device 1
Device Type : Auto Detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode : Not Applicable
On my Secondary IDE Channel it shows :
Device 0
Device Type : Auto Detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode : Ultra DMA Mode 2
Device 1
Device Type : Auto Detection
Transfer Mode : DMA if available
Current Transfer Mode : Ultra DMA Mode 2

I went to Device Manager -> Views tab -> Resources by Type
Expanded the Direct Memory access (DMA)
It showed:
3 ECP Printer Port (LPT1)
4 Direct memory access controller


I went to properties on the Direct memory acces controller, and the device status shows : No drivers are installed for this device.

If you are having problems with this device, click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter.


Is that significant?

 

[Sharkfood]

On my Secondary IDE Channel it shows :
...
Current Transfer Mode : Ultra DMA Mode 2
...
Current Transfer Mode : Ultra DMA Mode 2

Perfect. Your two HD's are in UDMA Mode 2... so DMA is working on them.

I went to properties on the Direct memory acces controller, and the device status shows : No drivers are installed for this device.

That is normal and as should be.. everything's great there.

If it's DMA related or similar, then it would be something quirky with the way you have your drives configured for RAID. You can test this if you wish by disabling virtual memory (My Computer, Properties, Advanced Tab, click Settings on the "Performance" area and then Advanced/bottom group for "Virtual Memory") Boot without virtual memory and try one of your smallest/oldest games to see if it can play under 1gig without pagefile. If the freezes go away- it's the pagefile on RAID. Even if the freezes are still there, it's not 100% indicative of no problems with the raid/raid config.

Lastly, try disabling Norton if it's NAV.. If it's a higher version of Norton- such as Norton Internet Security, you may have to completely remove it in order to test if it's the culprit. This should only be attempted if you have the installation CD's and activation code/keys needed to re-install.

 

[Wasp]

Eep.

My mom demanded that I take the computer back to CompUSA (I have a 3 year hardware warranty on it). Last time they didn't do anything, and I doubt they will this time.. Also, last night, while I took apart the shell and logged into wc3 to see if it was an overheating problem, it definitly didn't help. During the time I tried it, however, the moniter stopped receiving power from the computer, it says :"No power source, shutting off to preserve power", or something.. And then it comes back to the desktop. So I go back into the game, then the comp reboots of it's own accord.. first time that has happened. And then it comes to a screen, Insert proper boot device or media and retry, or press a key, or something like that, and I couldn't get passed it. So it's in a bad state at the moment.

 

[Wasp]

Got it back from CompUSA, no difference in game.

 

[Wasp]

Hopeful bump?

 

[peterdiva]

Right click the task bar(at bottom of screen)and click task manager,then click the performance tab,and see what the CPU usage is.