random pauses

[robwebb]

I recently aquired a Dell 8200 with a 1.8Ghz P4 and a 64MB NV20 video card. I formatted the hard drive and installed Windows 2000, including all of the updates.

The computer will randomly pause for anywhere between 5 and 45 seconds. During the pause the video will freeze - in addition the keyboard and mouse become unresponsive. Also the audio will loop, repeating about 1 - 2 seconds of audio repeatedly. After the episode completes the computer returns to normal for 5 - 10 minutes then it will pause again. The pausing seems to occur more frequently when the system is under load, for example playing HALO or other games.

I think the problem is with the CPU or the Video card - other thoughts would be welcome. I have run extensive perfmon reports on all of the subsystems while the pauses occur. What I have found is that all of the subsystems appear to be operating normally with the exception of the CPU. The CPU utilization drops to 0% during the pause, although the CPU queue still has work to be done. I am wondering if I have an overheating problem in either the CPU or the video card.

Has anyone run accross this or a similar problem? Any ideas on how to isolate it further?

Thanks in advance
Robert

 

[DannyBoy]

Check your task manager for programs that are using your cpu power, sounds to me like something is using all your resources, which in turn will cause those long pauses. Also check how much free ram you have, anything that looks unusual you should try closing and see how things work.

Dan

 

[Bad Dude]

If anything I would suspect first the power supply before the CPU and video. If those two are overheat you will get crashes. The same would occur with PSU. I think your problem is software related. Check to see if you got something that is eating up the CPU cycles.