XP Pauses for 2 secs about every 30 secs

[DaveInVA 0]

I just moved up to XP Pro from Win2k. I did a CLEAN install on a fresh reformat. The system was working well with Win2K. I have a couple of problems with XP Pro that will make it useless to me if I can't fix them. The problems are:

 

1: About every 30 or so seconds XP pauses for about 2 seconds. It does this no matter what you are doing. If you are playing Winamp it will stop playing for 2 secs and then start again about every 30 secs. The same with playing an AVI with Windows Media Player. The same with trying to burn a CD with NERO or DirectCD. Even if you are typing into an IM window it stops for 2 secs while you are typing. It does it in any application.

 

2: When you are going through any menu that has the drives listed it will freeze for several seconds over that entry during which you can't do anything. It even does it when you open "My Computer".

 

3: When you have the contents of "My Computer" displayed and any USB device is plugged in that shows as a drive it will constantly flip between displaying them and not displaying them back and forth while you watch as if you are plugging and unplugging the device over and over.

 

Here is what I have tried so far with no change:

 

Reinstalled XP Pro 3 times from dead scratch on a fresh format.

Tried several versions of nVidia detenator drivers.

Installed all the Windows Updates from Micro$oft.

Installed any updated device drivers I could find.

Turned off any Services to manual or disable that are not needed.

Turned off System Restore.

Turned off indexing.

Tried turning off all tasks but the minimun needed to run.

Tried pagefilesize tweaks.

Tried different memory.

Turned all BIOS settings to slowest.

Unplugged all USB devices.

And a few other things I can't remember right now.

 

 

All 3 of the above problems are probably related. The system did not have these problems with Win2k Pro. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. My only other choice is going back to Win2k.

 

My System:

ASUS AV7

800mhz TBird

384mb PC133 ram (3 -128mb)

Promise ATA100 RAID

2 - Western Digital 30gb 7200RPM

GeForce 2 GTS Pro

SoundBlaster Live! Platinum

TDK Velocity CDRW

Pioneer 106 16x DVD

 

 

Thanks in advance,

Dave

[OLEerror 0]

Try plugging your hard drives into you primary IDE channel to see if the same problems occur.

 

You didn't list a network adapter in your specs. From the sound of it, I'd say there is a chance it is either a protocol of NIC problem.

[DaveInVA 0]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I haven't tried not using the raid card yet but I did try both the latest and previous to the latest Drivers from the Promise website. I will try installing on a drive on the MB's Primary IDE port later and see what that does.

The Network card is a DLink DFE538TX. I tries both the drivers from the XP CD and the ones off DLinks website. The problem also happens just the same when you are not online. I can be disconnected and running Winamp from a local file, etc and it still does it.

The Hardware is exactly the same as it was when I was running Win2k Pro. The XP Pro is the full version and has been installed on a freshly NTFS formatted drive.

[Four and Twenty 0]

it is definatly driver related

try pulling all pci cards and putting them back in one by one. that will narrow it down real quick.

[DaveInVA 0]

Well Problem #1 is fixed thanks to OLEerror's suggestion but I still have Problems #2 & 3.

Problem #1 turned out to be the XP drivers for the DLINK Card. I removed the DLINK Card and installed a Jaton XpressNet NIC card I had laying around and its XP drivers and now the pauses are gone!! There are no drivers on DLINKS website that correct the problem so I will just use the Jaton.

Now Winamp, Windows Media Player etc all work without the pauses.

However, it still has the weird USB Polling problem and it still hangs for a few seconds when placing the pointer over a menu selection that has drives listes (such as the My Computer link in the Start Menu).

 

Thanks,

Dave

[EM 0]

Just a thought...Have you enabled an IRQ for your graphics card in the BIOS? I am not familiar with that motherboard so I don't know if that option is in your BIOS. Also enable one for USB if that option is there.

 

Ed

[ThC 129 0]

yeah, the problems sound like a USB and Harddisk related problem. If the USB device keeps on coming on and off, its sounds like its either not enough power to the USB device or an IRQ isnt assigned to it. As for the HD related problem i would probably relate it to the RAID setup on your disk. Ive heard of problems with the Promise controllers in XP. Also try the latest VIA IDE Drivers and see if those help ya out.

[DaveInVA 0]

I want to thank everyone for all the suggestions so far!

 

In response to the last 2 suggestions:

1 Yes the Video board and USB have been assigned IRQ's in the BIOS. I also have the latest BIOS for the ASUS AV7 installed.

2 The USB stuff was working flawlessly before I installed XP Pro. I was using Win2k Pro previously. No hardware had been changed.

The USB devices attached are:

Epson 480SXU printer

Logitech Wingman 3D Extreme Joystick

Transcend card reader

3Com HomeConnect Webcam

 

The device that causes the constant polling is the Transcend card reader. It did not do this under Win2k Pro. The only XP drivers for it are on the XP CD. The drivers on their website are the same ones. I suspect it may be a driver thats not quite ready for prime time.

 

As far as the other problem I have tried the latest VIA drivers and the latest Promise drivers. With Sandra the drives score very nicely. All the other Sandra scores are within spec also. The MadOnion 3D2000/3D2001 scores seem reasonable also.

 

Dave