Computer pauses every now and then, cause?

[godfire]

I built a new computer about 6 months ago, and it's always had this issue where everything would pause/freeze for a few seconds every now and then. I can still move my mouse, but I can't actually interact with anything, and if I'm watching a video or playing a game the picture will also freeze during this time. It used to happen once every few days or so, but it seems to have gotten more frequent - a few times a day. Is this a hardware or a software problem? If it's the former, which piece should I be investigating? Thanks for any help.

Some specs:
Hard drives - WD Caviar Black 7200 (640gb and 1 tb)
RAM - Corsair 2 x 2GB DDR2 800
Motherboard - Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
PS - Corsair CMPSU-520HX 520W
CPU - Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 3.16GHz
OS - Vista Ultimate

 

[godfire]

Anyone?

 

[ch33zw1z]

It could be for a number of reasons. I would start by making sure you have all the latest drivers and firmware, and Vista updates.

 

[doubleOseven]

it could be that your computer is set up to go into power savings mode, such that after some inactivity, your hard drive(s) power down to save electricity, and then when your computer needs to access the drives, it pauses while the drive "wakes up"

 

[corkyg]

And, sometimes pauses are perfectly normal and reasonable. They are then called "queueing."

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: doubleOseven
it could be that your computer is set up to go into power savings mode, such that after some inactivity, your hard drive(s) power down to save electricity, and then when your computer needs to access the drives, it pauses while the drive "wakes up"

This would be my guess also. Assuming that's the case, turn that off ASAP. Drives don't seem to last nearly as long when they're constantly being stopped, then started again.