Choppy Video, Slow Games, Slow computer, etc.

[Winchester]

When I play a video, it gets choppy, it plays about 5 seconds, then stops for 1, etc. I have what I feel is a nice system(*) so I dont think it is my hardware, but even still games run slow unless they are the FIRST thing I run. If I open outlook read emails, then close it, games are choppy.

At first I thought it was just BF1942 reading from a the CD-Rom, but I just tried a quick time movie and it does thet same thing, as well as any intro video on a game or in-game video. I would like to run games at 1024x768x32bit with EAX enabled, but I cant even run BF1942 at 800x600 on LOW graphics detail without it being choppy.


I should be able to go all day without having to restart my computer just because it is slow. At work i have a (XP 2400, GF2 MX 400 64mb, 512mb ram) and it runs for a week without having to restart and I can even play games etc, no problems, but my machine SUCKS!!! I recently did a format re-install so it cant possibly be that, I have PLENTY of ram, 1.2 GB, and >50gb free space on my main drive. I have two virus scanners running as well to catch anything.

Any help.


*Gigabyte GA-7VAXP
Athlon XP 1800
1.2gb PC2700
360gb (3x120gb Maxtor 7200rpm 8mb cache)
64mb GF4 ti4200,
Creative Audigy Platinum
Dell Combo DVD/CD-RW Drive
4 80mm case fans
WinXP Pro
3x19" monitors.

 

[Markfw]

check task manager. It sounds like something else is running, like a virus or spyware. If you can, re-format and try again before it gets infected.

 

[Viper96720]

List the processes under task manager. Also you have kept window xp up to date?

 

[Winchester]

I have Avast and AVG running and I ran Ad-Aware, which only found like 13 files, most were cookies, two CYDOOR, and two registry things.

Task Manager

 

[SXMP]

You mentioned you play games with cd-roms. Have you made sure DMA is enabled on the cdrom? Makes a huge difference. Also, Im assuming since you didnt mention a sound card, you use onboard sound. EAX is going to run off processor then, thus taking up resources.

 

[Viper96720]

Disable cthelper.exe end process then run msconfig and disable. That's probably what's slowing you down. Start, Run, msconfig, click the start up tab and uncheck the cthelper.

 

[Mem]

You also checked your AF/AA settings in Nvidia display control panel,make sure you don`t have AA on or AF set too high.

Download Spybot as well ,works ok with Ad-aware.

 

[Winchester]

Thanks keep them coming.


I dont have onboard sound. (Creative Audigy Platinum)
I have AF settings set on off, AA settings set on Application, CThelper is now disabled
I do have Hardware Accelleration set to FULL, with write combining enabled.

Updated System Specs:

Gigabyte GA-7VAXP
Athlon XP 1800
1.2gb PC2700
360gb (3x120gb Maxtor 7200rpm 8mb cache)
64mb GF4 ti4200,
Creative Audigy Platinum
Dell Combo DVD/CD-RW Drive
4 80mm case fans
WinXP Pro

 

[Viper96720]

I had games that would slow down with that cthelper thing running. There was a website you could search the tasks and it would say what it did and if it was needed. cthelper
was one of those not really needed ones. Here's the site task list

 

[Finnkc]

mobo spec?

you can have all the good parts but if your motherboard is the pits then ... well sorry I can understand why it seems slow.

 

[Winchester]

Gigabyte GA-7VAXP

 

[Winchester]

thanks for the list, I will go through it.

 

[Winchester]

Cant even play 2 levels on BF1942 before it is so choppy that you think your on a pentium II.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Memory leak?

- M4H

 

[Viper96720]

Try testing the hard drive and memory.

 

[Winchester]

Ive ran a memory test program, said everything was fine, but it seems when I went from 256 to 1.2gb (2x512 1x256) that it started being slow. The two 512 sticks are K-Byte, the 256 is generic AFAIK.

 

[Mem]

Ive ran a memory test program, said everything was fine, but it seems when I went from 256 to 1.2gb (2x512 1x256) that it started being slow. The two 512 sticks are K-Byte, the 256 is generic AFAIK.

Try taking the generic stick of ram out,does that make any difference?

 

[Winchester]

I took out the generic stick and it seems to be faster. Before I can say "open" my microsoft word is open ready to go, but this is as soon as I restarted.

I ran BF1942 but the SOUND is choppy in the video, the video runs smooth but the audio spits in and out, just as before.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Search for a thread on PCI latencies... that may be a solution for you...

 

[Winchester]

Cant find anything!

 

[Winchester]

I started running BF1942 at 1024x768x16 & medium detail and it ran much smoother, but the starting videos are still choppy. Even quicktime movies become choppy when I try to play them at close to full screen.

 

[Luagsch]

your svchost task is at 28% processor usage as local service? is that normal on your sys?

(i don't really know what svchost does, but i've never seen mine over 0% )

 

[Winchester]

i looked that up. It said it was a Windows service, and that there can be multiple instances of it, but that some have been known to be viruses, but Ive ran two virus scans and nothing came up!

 

[Mem]

You installed the latest VIA Hyperion drivers ?(especially the AGP driver).

Try Anti-trojan 5.5 (14 day trial of full version) it can detect trojans and remove them,if you get port 5000 open on scan read this first .

4.49 Hyperion drivers .


Few BIOS tweaks can`t do no harm,disable all video shadowing,disable system bios cacheable,disable video ram cacheable,disable fastwrites. AGP size should be 128mb(you can use 256mb if you feel it`s better).

 

[Winchester]

Thanks Mem, I will try your hints!