Vista - Stuttering PC Problem

I can't think of a better way to describe this problem other than to say the
PC stutters.

I'm using Home Premium (fully patched) with Media Centre as a Home Theatre
PC.
I have a gigabyte EX38-DQ6 motherboard E8500 CPU, and 2Gb RAM, this is
overkill for a HTPC so there shouldn't be any capacity issues in the
hardware.

Sometimes when playing back recorded shows the picture and sound start
stuttering taking up to 10 seconds elapsed time to go through 2 seconds of
recorded show. When this happens the mouse and other facilities (minimise
window, etc) also seem to be jerking around instead of operating smoothly.
When I play the show back later it is fine so it is not the recording.
Also sometimes when recording shows there are blocks that are dropped from
the recording that I assume are related to this.

I don't believe this is a Media Centre problem as similar things happen when
Media Centre is not running.

I have McAffee Total Protection 2009 for a firewall and anti-virus and this
shows no viruses and no spyware. I have turned off scheduled scans so this
shouldn't be the problem. I have also turned off disk indexing as I don't
need it on a HTPC.

Any suggestions as to where I can look for the problem?

Thank You

I have even noticed this on digital TV.....this is progress??????

"Gilgamesh" <gilgamesh@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uiUnwucuJHA.4632@xxxxxx

Is this something new or has it been a problem since you built this machine?
Is the BIOS the most recent and is it properly installed?
Have you run diagnostics on the hard drive used for media storage?
What might be running in the background that you can eliminate?

In article <uiUnwucuJHA.4632@xxxxxx>,
Gilgamesh <gilgamesh@xxxxxx> wrote:That's a symptom of an overworked CPU. If you can't upgrade the
system try

- shutting down as many running programs as possible. That includes
things like chat clients that always run in the background as well
as ordinary open windows like word or excel.

- add more RAM.

- defrag your disc, remove the swap file, reboot, make a new
swap file and specify a fixed size (as opposed to let windows manage)
for the new one.

In article <grodsm$pd6$3@xxxxxx>,
the wharf rat <wrat@xxxxxx> wrote:
Oh, yeah, if you a primitive graphics crad the cpu will do too much
of the graphics work and get buried. A decent upgrade ofr that is cheap and
easy for anyone who knows that electricity makes sparks and can hold a
screwdriver.

"the wharf rat" <wrat@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:grodsm$pd6$3@xxxxxxThis was why I posted my system spec and said I used it as a HTPC.
With the E8500 CPU it doesn't get over 30% utilised, like I said - overkill
for a HTPC.
This is a HTPC only used for HTPC purposes without any of those apps loaded.
I have a separate PC for that work.
Other than Microsoft services the only things running are disk driver, video
driver, and the McAffee services
Physical memory is only 40% utilised. Running 2Gb on Vista "should" be
sufficient.
RAM is cheap so I can add an extra Gig (as 32Bit OS doesn't address more
than a total of 3Gb would be useless)
Disc had been cleaned up and defregged but issue remains.
Swap file is a possibility - I have two physical discs so it can be split
between them.

"the wharf rat" <wrat@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:grodv6$pd6$4@xxxxxxCard is not primative - NVidia 8800 GT.
Not overclocked but still more than is needed for a HTPC.

On Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:30:11 +0930, Gilgamesh wrote:
I suggest updating your video drivers (from nVidia, since you said
elsewhere in the thread that you have an nVidia card) and also looking into
your video and audio codecs and the video decoder.

There used to be an nVidia video decoder available that was supposed to
help, but that was only for XP MCE.

Unfortunately, I can offer no more specific ideas than the above.

Possibly, someone over at microsoft.public.windows.mediacenter can help
more. There are some very knowledgeable people there.

--
Gene E. Bloch letters0x40blochg0x2Ecom