Pauses in gameplay

[cpthooker]

I have built my current system over time, so far its a AMD 3200 on a Asus k8V SE Deluxe, 1gb ram, Geforce V9980 ultra, soundblaster Audigy 2 ZS, LG DVD Rom, Pioneer DVD writer, 120 gb main drive (windows XP), 80gb (Dual boot Win XP 64bit beta) and 200gb backup drive using a Areocool II 550w psu.
Recently I noticed that when I play games that it always pauses a few seconds then plays and pauses a minutes later. I have tried several games and the result is the same. Unreal Tournament 2004 seems to pause alot more than some other games. i was thinking it was either psu was not giving out enough power or the graphic card was on its last legs.

P.S. I heard that you were supposed to take the power cable out of the computer when its switched off. There has been times where I did not do this. Could this cause damamge to my graphics card?

 

[thelanx]

first of all, you don't need to take the power cable out of the computer when it's switched off, in fact I'd recommend against it as you will probably drain the power in the battery on your motherboard. As to your pauses, make sure you are not running extra programs in the background, especially cpu intenstive apps that perhaps update every 3 seconds.

 

[justly]

Unplug your computer if you are doing maintenance, otherwise leave it plugged in. ATX power supplies provide a constant signal voltage that tells them when to fully power up or shut down, but as far as I know it has nothing to do with the battery.

As for the pauses make sure your drives have DMA enabled, if they do and you still have problems then look for background apps that could be causing the problem.

 

[BFG10K]

P.S. I heard that you were supposed to take the power cable out of the computer when its switched off.

There is absolutely no reason to do so. As for your problem, if you're using a NV40 card try flashing it with the latest reference BIOS from nVidia.

 

[cpthooker]

thanks I will try it tonight

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: thelanx
first of all, you don't need to take the power cable out of the computer when it's switched off, in fact I'd recommend against it as you will probably drain the power in the battery on your motherboard.

Eh, no.

It is wise to remove the power cord when doing maintenance on the computer. Modern ATX systems keep the system "live", even if you have used the power button on the front to turn it "off". The only way to ensure that power is fully-off (and therefore no damage hardware), is to pull the plug completely. (Some ATX PSUs also have a "kill switch" on the back of the PSU that will do the same thing as pulling the plug. Many don't, and even the ones that do, to avoid accidentally hitting that switch, I still recommend pulling the plug.)

Originally posted by: thelanxAs to your pauses, make sure you are not running extra programs in the background, especially cpu intenstive apps that perhaps update every 3 seconds.

That sounds like the most likely thing to check on.