Vista - Continuous stuttering every 3 seconds throughout vista

Hey everyone, I just built a new computer for a friend of mine. I'll write
up the specs at the bottom. Anyways, I installed Vista Home prem 32bit,
downloaded and installed all the latest chipset drivers, video card drivers
etc etc. and then let vista take care of itself downloading various vista
updates and installed them. All went well without hickups, then I installed
Flight Sim X, updated it with the new service packs and tested the system a
few times to see if all was working. After successful tests, I disconnected
it all, bundled it up and it sat for about 2 weeks waiting delivery.
I delivered it and upon startup, it had this strange continous stutter
every 3 seconds without missing a beat, during that 1 second pause, the mouse
and everything else skips. It seems to correspond to the HDD activity light
but I can't seem to find out why or what process is causing it. If I shut
down all the taskbar items and try and turn off as many processes as windows
will let me, and just don't even touch it, it still persists. FSX skips
along to the beat and so does every other program. So after hours of trying
to figure it out, I'm at a loss, I'll post some conclusions I' ve found, and
hope for help, cause I'm at the point of wiping the hard drive clean today
and starting fresh.

The problem disappears in safe mode (then again do most processes and
services).
The task manager reports 99% idle, but intermittent 1-3% usage by "services"
process which seems to correlate with the pauses.
A WMI or WMP (can't remember which of the 2) process appears every 10
seconds or so and dissapears rapidly, during which the pauses last longer and
the HDD activity light goes nutz and the mouse does it's "thinking" ring.

I've never seen this before except when a program has crashed and is stuck
in a loop in the background sucking up CPU cycles. I have tried recovering
to an earlier state, which did nothing. Here's one more interesting tid bit,
about half the time when trying to run FSX or any program they crash when
they finish loading and the timing corresponds to the larger pause in vista,
which results in a BSOD that mentions something about IRQx (can't rememeber
which letter the x stands for).

I apologize for the long post, and I'm fairly new to vista, I only have a
laptop with vista installed, otherwise I'm sticking with XP64 on my
desktop... for now. here's the specs:
Q9300 C2Q
Evga 750i sli mb
4GB OCZ ram (i know i only get 3.3 something usable...ram is cheap)
Evga 8800GTS 512
Corsair 620watt PS
samsung something dvdrw

Small update: I ended up formating the HDD, and reinstalling vista etc. I
left the video card drivers to the last, and lo and behold as soon as they
went in, the problem started again. I completed a recovery to the point
before the driver installation, and downloaded an older version of the
drivers to try them out. No difference. I did the same thing through about
5 version of drivers, and no change. Each time I install the drivers for the
8800GTs 512mb evga card, the stuttering returns. I'm debating weather its a
hardware issue or not. Using the built in general VGA vista driver there is
no stuttering, and the hardware (as limited in functionality as it is) seems
to work fine, then with the drivers installed, it starts stuttering like mad,
even without ANY 3d graphics whatsoever, not even aero running. This is
driving me nuts. I'm gonna post at EVGA forums as well. I've brought the
computer home and will swap out the video card with my own to test it.

Hello,

Did you solve your problem ?
I have exactly the same stutters every few seconds.

What is your MB / CPU ?

Thanks,
Ulisses

ulisses simionato wrote:
No one can help you because most people can't see the post to which you're
referring. On top of that, you didn't quote anything of the original
poster's issue. You're posting from a web interface (not a real forum) that
just slurps Usenet newsgroup posts. The majority of the helpers in the MS
newsgroups use real newsreaders so we don't see the same interface you do.
Read the explanation and links below and then post back with all your
details so we can help you.

Since you are using a web interface, you may not realize that this is really
a newsgroup. You will get far more out of this resource if you learn to use
a newsreader. There are many good newsreaders for Windows, but you can use
Outlook Express (XP) or Windows Mail (Vista) since you already have it.
Here are some links to information about newsgroups:

About Usenet:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ - Usenet FAQs from the Internet FAQ Archives
http://www.usenetmonster.com/infocenter/
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Usenet - a brief explanation
of newsgroups

Outlook Express/Windows Mail as Newsreader:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm
http://rickrogers.org/setupoe.htm
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/accessi...ndows_mail.htm

How to Post:
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/page2.html#Usenet
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/555375 - How to Ask a Question
http://users.tpg.com.au/bzyhjr/liszt.htm - How Not to Get Technical Help on
Usenet
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

http://aumha.org/nntp.htm - list of MS newsgroups
microsoft.public.test.here - MS group to test if your newsreader is working
properly
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/munad.htm - how to munge email address
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossposting - crossposting
http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm - multiposting

Other Newsreaders for Windows:
http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php - Forte
http://www.mozilla.org - Thunderbird
http://gravity.tbates.org/


Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
FAQ - http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ

"ulisses simionato" wrote in message
news:200811751919ulisses@xxxxxxPost this question at...
alt.games.microsoft.flight-sim

You would want to post your CPU, RAM, Video Card, res at which you fly, op
system (Vista, Xp, ), etc.

With that said do you have Service Pack 1 & 2 for FSX? If not they are
here...
http://www.fsinsider.com/downloads/Pages/default.aspx
download and install them. SP1 for sure addresses stutter problems. SP2
further tweaks the settings for FSX.
--