Windows seems slow recently, sound stutters etc.

[Lord Turkey Cough]

I don't know what has happened but it is running like a dog.
It takes longer to boot up seemingly.
It seems to other performance probs too, the mouse pointer is 'sticky'
and it stutters playing music, or maybe video but it is very noticable on
sound.
Even when the cpu is 'idle' supposedly. There seems to be a mismatch between
the cpu usage bar in the system tray and the cpu in task manager, but that
my be
due to delays betwen the two perhaps.

I have been mesing about with it recently, I installed ubuntu to my second
drive.
I aslo took the page file off that drive, but I have put it back now - not
difference,
does it need a reboot to take effect?

I also opened the multi channel sound manager, I have never used that before
but was curious, I don't recall making any changes.

I also installed the latest AVG free, I have the link scanner diabled now.
I killed off most/all of the avg stuff and that seemed to make no
difference.

I had also been transfering data off another drive by putting it on as
slave,
I got the jumper setting wrong a few times resulting in error, and no boot,
but when I got the setting right it was OK.

One of the drives I tried was dead previously in another machine, I tried
in this this one to see it it was justthe other machine it would not work
in.
(it seems a gonna).

I also put in a network card (ethernet 10/100) which I thought was
dead, it didn't seem to show up in device manager so I took it out.

Another thing I did was to change my conection from the computer to
cable modem from USB to ethernet port.

Some of this involved using the network set up wizard.

This always seems to finish with an error (unspecified)

Any ideas chaps?

Could be a lot of red herrings there, I will try and undo a lot of the
'stuff'
I have done.

It's not too bad really but music sounds bad with stuttering, so noticable.

Any ideas diognostics?

Windows XP SP2 on sempron 3000 1.2 gig ram, 80 and 250 gig drives
25 and 85 gig free respectively.

Tia

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

Your Ethernet card is a RealTek 8139,

How did you know that?
Thats right, onboard.

and likely has more overhead
than a normal card. Still, if I had to choose Ethernet or USB for
a network connection, I'd choose the Ethernet. And if there is
any protocol conversion required, between the broadband modem, and
the computer, I'd buy a router that can handle the conversion
automatically, so the computer is totally oblivious to how it
is getting its network connection. (My router handles the PPPOE
that comes from the ADSL modem, so my computer doesn't have to
do it.)

I will try to change back to USB anyway to eliminate that.
Trouble is it take a good while to boot now.

For a toy to play with, you could try this.

http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.pdf
http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe

They also mention another tool called RATT from Microsoft here.

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/s...=584782&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

But really, you have to be methodical, and keep track of the stuff
you've been messing with, to hope to narrow the source of the problem
down.

On older computers, a BIOS setting called "Delayed Transaction" was
one fix for sound problems. Adjusting PCI Latency (which affects
how long any PCI device stays on the bus), was another tweak. But
in the current day, it seems software is doing a lot of the
messing up, and fixing it is a lot harder.

Gonna try uninstalling ubuntu.
But I will try sound in ubuntu first and see if it has the same problem.

Should be a good test if it uses different software for sound.
I think it will, but I will check on their forum, I am new to it.
Maybe sabotaged windows?

Thnaks for the help.

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

I think you mentioned it in another post.

By the way, have you looked in Task Manager (control-alt-delete),
to see if any software is running at 100%. Sometimes, something
gets stuck in a loop, and then there aren't a lot of cycles
left to run the sound tool.

Yes I can't see anything odd, except that often when the 'green bar' is 100%
ish
of often it shows it at about 66% idle or something like that, its bit
weird.


Oh and one other thing, you know the connection icon in the task bar,
it is flashing on light blue, like it did when I had a local area connection
set up.
I don't think it should, it is like I have made the internet my local area
network
or something. But I don't think it is that, I have disabled sharing.

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

I do have a theory that Ubuntu screwed up windows in a
'operating system war'?

Sounds plausible?

OK back on as Turkey, I will run a virus scan.

Took almost 10 mins to boot up. (in XP) ubuntu 2 mins.

 

[Paul]

I don't know what has happened but it is running like a dog.
It takes longer to boot up seemingly.
It seems to other performance probs too, the mouse pointer is 'sticky'
and it stutters playing music, or maybe video but it is very noticable on
sound.
Even when the cpu is 'idle' supposedly. There seems to be a mismatch between
the cpu usage bar in the system tray and the cpu in task manager, but that
my be
due to delays betwen the two perhaps.

I have been mesing about with it recently, I installed ubuntu to my second
drive.
I aslo took the page file off that drive, but I have put it back now - not
difference,
does it need a reboot to take effect?

I also opened the multi channel sound manager, I have never used that before
but was curious, I don't recall making any changes.

I also installed the latest AVG free, I have the link scanner diabled now.
I killed off most/all of the avg stuff and that seemed to make no
difference.

I had also been transfering data off another drive by putting it on as
slave,
I got the jumper setting wrong a few times resulting in error, and no boot,
but when I got the setting right it was OK.

One of the drives I tried was dead previously in another machine, I tried
in this this one to see it it was justthe other machine it would not work
in.
(it seems a gonna).

I also put in a network card (ethernet 10/100) which I thought was
dead, it didn't seem to show up in device manager so I took it out.

Another thing I did was to change my conection from the computer to
cable modem from USB to ethernet port.

Some of this involved using the network set up wizard.

This always seems to finish with an error (unspecified)

Any ideas chaps?

Could be a lot of red herrings there, I will try and undo a lot of the
'stuff'
I have done.

It's not too bad really but music sounds bad with stuttering, so noticable.

Any ideas diognostics?

Windows XP SP2 on sempron 3000 1.2 gig ram, 80 and 250 gig drives
25 and 85 gig free respectively.

Tia

Your Ethernet card is a RealTek 8139, and likely has more overhead
than a normal card. Still, if I had to choose Ethernet or USB for
a network connection, I'd choose the Ethernet. And if there is
any protocol conversion required, between the broadband modem, and
the computer, I'd buy a router that can handle the conversion
automatically, so the computer is totally oblivious to how it
is getting its network connection. (My router handles the PPPOE
that comes from the ADSL modem, so my computer doesn't have to
do it.)

For a toy to play with, you could try this.

http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.pdf
http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe

They also mention another tool called RATT from Microsoft here.

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/s...=584782&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

But really, you have to be methodical, and keep track of the stuff
you've been messing with, to hope to narrow the source of the problem
down.

On older computers, a BIOS setting called "Delayed Transaction" was
one fix for sound problems. Adjusting PCI Latency (which affects
how long any PCI device stays on the bus), was another tweak. But
in the current day, it seems software is doing a lot of the
messing up, and fixing it is a lot harder.

Paul

 

[Paul]

Your Ethernet card is a RealTek 8139, and likely has more overhead
than a normal card. Still, if I had to choose Ethernet or USB for
a network connection, I'd choose the Ethernet. And if there is
any protocol conversion required, between the broadband modem, and
the computer, I'd buy a router that can handle the conversion
automatically, so the computer is totally oblivious to how it
is getting its network connection. (My router handles the PPPOE
that comes from the ADSL modem, so my computer doesn't have to
do it.)

For a toy to play with, you could try this.

http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.pdf
http://www.thesycon.de/dpclat/dpclat.exe

They also mention another tool called RATT from Microsoft here.

http://www.soundonsound.com/forum/s...=584782&page=0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1


But really, you have to be methodical, and keep track of the stuff
you've been messing with, to hope to narrow the source of the problem
down.

On older computers, a BIOS setting called "Delayed Transaction" was
one fix for sound problems. Adjusting PCI Latency (which affects
how long any PCI device stays on the bus), was another tweak. But
in the current day, it seems software is doing a lot of the
messing up, and fixing it is a lot harder.

Paul

Hmmm. I tried running dpclat.exe, and my antivirus software got
tied up in knots. Tried to do a shutdown and the computer wouldn't
shut down. Had to do a reset. Tried it a second time, and this time,
the AV rejected the driver the program was trying to install. So
when you go to use that tool, you may run into a bit of trouble.

I had a similar experience with a framerate measurement tool for
gaming. Program tried to add something into a bunch of games,
and the AV software went nuts. So depending on how aggressive
your AV software is, you may not get it to run.

Paul

 

[Paul]

How did you know that?
Thats right, onboard.

I think you mentioned it in another post.

By the way, have you looked in Task Manager (control-alt-delete),
to see if any software is running at 100%. Sometimes, something
gets stuck in a loop, and then there aren't a lot of cycles
left to run the sound tool.

Paul

 

[half_pint]

I think you mentioned it in another post.

By the way, have you looked in Task Manager (control-alt-delete),
to see if any software is running at 100%. Sometimes, something
gets stuck in a loop, and then there aren't a lot of cycles
left to run the sound tool.

Paul

Hi Paul!! This is Lord Turkey Cough under his very old name :O)

I had to use this because I am using ubuntu and I don't have my
Outlook express to login as the Turkey lol.

Anyway I can tell you that sound plays fine in Ubuntu a little hard to
test
because I don't have any appilcations to load the CPU, just surfing
websites to put a load on the CPU, but the sound is perfect even with
'heavy surfing', also I can play several youtube videos at once and
the sound is mixed perfectly.
And the mouse pointer drag has gone, infact it seems very very fast!!

I am beginning to like ubuntu now!!!!!!!!!

So I guess that elimanates all hardware and comms issues??

Anyway ubuntu is pretty dammed good, certaintly compared to to my now
screwed up windows!! (should not say that here though!!).

I will try a few things back on XP, virus scans and defragging
(perhaps).

Narrow it down a bit anyway I guess!!

I am a bit lost with out windows, this is all so new to me.

 

[half_pint]

Hi Paul!! This is Lord Turkey Cough under his very old name :O)

I had to use this because I am using ubuntu and I don't have my
Outlook express to login as the Turkey lol.

Anyway I can tell you that sound plays fine in Ubuntu a little hard to
test
because I don't have any appilcations to load the CPU, just surfing
websites to put a load on the CPU, but the sound is perfect even with
'heavy surfing', also I can play several youtube videos at once and
the sound is mixed perfectly.
And the mouse pointer drag has gone, infact it seems very very fast!!

I am beginning to like ubuntu now!!!!!!!!!

So I guess that elimanates all hardware and comms issues??

Anyway ubuntu is pretty dammed good, certaintly compared to to my now
screwed up windows!! (should not say that here though!!).

I will try a few things back on XP, virus scans and defragging
(perhaps).

Narrow it down a bit anyway I guess!!

I am a bit lost with out windows, this is all so new to me.

I do have a theory that Ubuntu screwed up windows in a
'operating system war'?

Sounds plausible?

 

[Paul]

OK back on as Turkey, I will run a virus scan.

Took almost 10 mins to boot up. (in XP) ubuntu 2 mins.

Some of my boot time, is all the screwing around the AV does.
My system would boot a bit faster, if it didn't have an antivirus
program scanning stuff at startup.

It is going to be tough to figure out what is upsetting the audio.
Start by looking at the Task Manager, because there may be an
obvious thing you added recently, and seeing the software
names listed, might remind you of what was added.

Another thing that can mess up the audio, is if the hard drive
is operating in polled mode, instead of in "DMA if available"
mode. In polled mode, the processor moves the data from the
disk to system memory, and that can be quite a bit slower.
And add enough latency, to make audio skip. A disk can
switch to polled mode, if Windows detects too many errors
coming from the disk.

Paul

 

[witan]

I don't know what has happened but it is running like a dog.
It takes longer to boot up seemingly.
It seems to other performance probs too, the mouse pointer is 'sticky'
and it stutters playing music, or maybe video but it is very noticable on
sound.
Even when the cpu is 'idle' supposedly. There seems to be a mismatch between
the cpu usage bar in the system tray and the cpu in task manager, but that
my be
due to delays betwen the two perhaps.

I have been mesing about with it recently, I installed ubuntu to my second
drive.
I aslo took the page file off that drive, but I have put it back now - not
difference,
does it need a reboot to take effect?

I also opened the multi channel sound manager, I have never used that before
but was curious, I don't recall making any changes.

I also installed the latest AVG free, I have the link scanner diabled now..
I killed off most/all of the avg stuff and that seemed to make no
difference.

I had also been transfering data off another drive by putting it on as
slave,
I got the jumper setting wrong a few times resulting in error, and no boot,
but when I got the setting right it was OK.

One of the drives I tried was dead previously in another machine, I tried
in this this one to see it it was justthe other machine it would not work
in.
(it seems a gonna).

I also put in a network card (ethernet 10/100) which I thought was
dead, it didn't seem to show up in device manager so I took it out.

Another thing I did was to change my conection from the computer to
cable modem from USB to ethernet port.

Some of this involved using the network set up wizard.

This always seems to finish with an error (unspecified)

Any ideas chaps?

Could be a lot of red herrings there, I will try and undo a lot of the
'stuff'
I have done.

It's not too bad really but music sounds bad with stuttering, so noticable.

Any ideas diognostics?

Windows XP SP2 on sempron 3000 1.2 gig ram, 80 and 250 gig drives
25 and 85 gig free respectively.

Tia

I suggest you should check whether your harddrive had reverted to PIO
from DMA: it happened to my computer. I found a working solution at
http://winhlp.com/node/10 It involved downloading and running a VB
script file, resetdma.vbs from http://winhlp.com/tools/resetdma.vbs .
I said "working solution" because of my suspicion that the problem may
be actually connected with some mechanical defect or deficiency in the
hard disk, causing the disk to spin-up too slowly. Microsoft "support"
web page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/817472 says "IDE ATA and
ATAPI disks use PIO mode after multiple time-out or CRC errors
occur" ...etc. However, the solution recommended in the Microsoft page
did not work for me.

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

Some of my boot time, is all the screwing around the AV does.
My system would boot a bit faster, if it didn't have an antivirus
program scanning stuff at startup.

It is going to be tough to figure out what is upsetting the audio.
Start by looking at the Task Manager, because there may be an
obvious thing you added recently, and seeing the software
names listed, might remind you of what was added.

Another thing that can mess up the audio, is if the hard drive
is operating in polled mode, instead of in "DMA if available"
mode. In polled mode, the processor moves the data from the
disk to system memory, and that can be quite a bit slower.
And add enough latency, to make audio skip. A disk can
switch to polled mode, if Windows detects too many errors
coming from the disk.

So how do I tell which mode it is in?

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

Some of my boot time, is all the screwing around the AV does.
My system would boot a bit faster, if it didn't have an antivirus
program scanning stuff at startup.

I have removed my anti virus for the time being.
It takes long enouth to boot up as it is.
I also removed one other programs I updated.

One thing I have not removed yet is Ubuntu, but that is
on another drive and is not booted up (dual boot system).
I may have to try removing that too.
On the other hand I might be better off switching to Ubuntu altogeather.
If I can't sort this out I may have to anyway.

Incidently I can gets stuttering on sound at with the CPU
usage graph well below 40%, maybe its an average and there
are hidden peaks? (But it seems fine on ubuntu)
Also I have 1.25 gig ram, 640meg of ram is available, there should not
be much disk IO.
Anyway I will try various things, I have done a viru scan and it found some
stuff but it looked harmless and its all removed and no real difference.

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

(See "Workaround" for a fix.)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

Device Manager:IDE ATA/ATAPI controllersrimary IDE Channel

Example of proper setting here.
http://www.videoguys.com/Win2K_Tweaks/Image9.gif

Alternately, get a copy of HDTune from hdtune.com and use the Info tab.
Look in the lower right corner of the HDTune window, for the mode info.

Thanks I will have a loot at that.
I have a lot of things to 'look at'
However it seems to me in a way that it is not caching properly, for
example if I play a song it should all be cached in memory when I go back
the
start of it, but there are still stutters.

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

You could also reinstall Windows, if you're interested
in fixing it, without understanding what caused it.
Sometimes that is the lesser evil, if you don't have
any more time to waste on it.

If the CPU is running 40% and music stutters, if
you look in Task Manager, do you see any individual
task "peaking" at the time. I've had cases where
someone will post a problem like yours, and they
see a task run for a fraction of a second, and
then disappear from the Task Manager. Look more
carefully at the Task List, and correlate the
skip or stutter of the audio, with whatever new
task shows up or is using cycles.

There don't seem to be anything unusual, I am quite familiar with
what it usually looks like. I even killed off a few things.
I will try uninstlling ubuntu now.


This is my boot.ini:-
===============
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home
Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
c:\wubildr.mbr="Ubuntu"
====================

Incidently Ubuntu is on drive f: not c:

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

Ubunto won't make any difference ! Its not running inside windows !

Yes but who knows what it did during the instalation?

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

You could also reinstall Windows, if you're interested
in fixing it, without understanding what caused it.
Sometimes that is the lesser evil, if you don't have
any more time to waste on it.

If the CPU is running 40% and music stutters, if
you look in Task Manager, do you see any individual
task "peaking" at the time. I've had cases where
someone will post a problem like yours, and they
see a task run for a fraction of a second, and
then disappear from the Task Manager. Look more
carefully at the Task List, and correlate the
skip or stutter of the audio, with whatever new
task shows up or is using cycles.

Just an update, the sound is definately affected by disk IO,
songs sound worst at the start and then settle down, once the
file is loaded apparently. Also for example opening this news
group caused stuttering which stopped when it was opened.
The CPU did not seem high at those times, it seemed 'disk bound'.

Or at least the IO is screwed, it takes about 10 minutes to boot up
and open a web browser.

Maybe the disk hs problems?

 

[Lord Turkey Cough]

You could also reinstall Windows,

My system came with winidows pre-installed, so I have
no windows disk as such. However it does have a recovery
partition on the disk, and at start up there is some sort of
option to enter 'recovery or roll back' or something like that,
I can't remember the exact wording.

I am not sure what this does.
I also burnt a recover disk a while back, over a year.

I am not sure what is involved in this, I guess it just restores windows
and its drivers back to an older state?
What state is that? Last boot up? I would need to go back several
days or more, would that be possible?

I guess I will have to try that at some stage anyway.

I am also woondering if the disk is 'getting faulty'?
I will have a go at running benchmarks on that, but last time
I tried it just kind of hung for over 10 minutes and did not appear to
be doing anything, I killed it offf as I needed he comp,
Will try again later.

 

[Paul]

So how do I tell which mode it is in?

(See "Workaround" for a fix.)
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;817472

Device Manager:IDE ATA/ATAPI controllersrimary IDE Channel

Example of proper setting here.
http://www.videoguys.com/Win2K_Tweaks/Image9.gif

Alternately, get a copy of HDTune from hdtune.com and use the Info tab.
Look in the lower right corner of the HDTune window, for the mode info.

Paul

 

[Paul]

I have removed my anti virus for the time being.
It takes long enouth to boot up as it is.
I also removed one other programs I updated.

One thing I have not removed yet is Ubuntu, but that is
on another drive and is not booted up (dual boot system).
I may have to try removing that too.
On the other hand I might be better off switching to Ubuntu altogeather.
If I can't sort this out I may have to anyway.

Incidently I can gets stuttering on sound at with the CPU
usage graph well below 40%, maybe its an average and there
are hidden peaks? (But it seems fine on ubuntu)
Also I have 1.25 gig ram, 640meg of ram is available, there should not
be much disk IO.
Anyway I will try various things, I have done a viru scan and it found some
stuff but it looked harmless and its all removed and no real difference.

You could also reinstall Windows, if you're interested
in fixing it, without understanding what caused it.
Sometimes that is the lesser evil, if you don't have
any more time to waste on it.

If the CPU is running 40% and music stutters, if
you look in Task Manager, do you see any individual
task "peaking" at the time. I've had cases where
someone will post a problem like yours, and they
see a task run for a fraction of a second, and
then disappear from the Task Manager. Look more
carefully at the Task List, and correlate the
skip or stutter of the audio, with whatever new
task shows up or is using cycles.

Paul