Vista - Mouse locking up, video stuttering...

I'm having a problem with my Vista Business installation. Sometimes, for no
apparent reason, it locks up for a couple of seconds at a time with about 40
seconds apart. During this time the mouse don't move, I can't type, if I'm
watching some video it freezes and so on. I have no anti virus besides
OneCare installed and the problem was there before I installed that. I've
tried shutting down all open applications but it happens anyway. Then it goes
away by itself only to come back maybe 20 minutes later. I've tried looking
in the task manager to see if i can spot any process taking up the CPU but I
see nothing suspicious.

I've made two screenshots of how the performance tab looks like in the task
manager when I'm watching a video, one with the problem "active" and one
where it's behaving a bit better.

No problem -> http://i19.tinypic.com/4c7xv6c.png
Problem -> http://i7.tinypic.com/3y29zep.png

I've noticed that there's one active process more in the second picture but
I don't think that's it.

"jallaballa" <jallaballa@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote

> I'm having a problem with my Vista Business installation. Sometimes, for
> no
> apparent reason, it locks up for a couple of seconds at a time with about
> 40
> seconds apart. During this time the mouse don't move, I can't type, if I'm
> watching some video it freezes and so on. I have no anti virus besides
> OneCare installed and the problem was there before I installed that. I've
> tried shutting down all open applications but it happens anyway. Then it
> goes
> away by itself only to come back maybe 20 minutes later. I've tried
> looking
> in the task manager to see if i can spot any process taking up the CPU but
> I
> see nothing suspicious.
>
> I've made two screenshots of how the performance tab looks like in the
> task
> manager when I'm watching a video, one with the problem "active" and one
> where it's behaving a bit better.
>
> No problem -> http://i19.tinypic.com/4c7xv6c.png
> Problem -> http://i7.tinypic.com/3y29zep.png
>
> I've noticed that there's one active process more in the second picture
> but
> I don't think that's it.


Check if the drive is in PIO mode instead of DMA. Start Orb | Type Device
manager | Click on it (or if not running as an administrator right click and
choose Run as Administrator). Expand the a hard drive controller section,
double click on the Channel, and click the Advanced Settings tab. PIO or
DMA?

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]

I checked the device manager as you said and two of the channels have DMA
activated and the other two don't have the option on the advanced settings
tab.

http://i7.tinypic.com/2l8vgk7.png
The ones i highlighted have the DMA checkbox checked.

I could also mention my computers specification:
Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
1535 MB RAM
One 250 GB HDD and two 120 GB in RAID 0 on promise 378
asus p4p800-e mother board
ati radeon 9800 pro 128 MB
sound blaster audigy se

"Rock" wrote:

> Check if the drive is in PIO mode instead of DMA. Start Orb | Type Device
> manager | Click on it (or if not running as an administrator right click and
> choose Run as Administrator). Expand the a hard drive controller section,
> double click on the Channel, and click the Advanced Settings tab. PIO or
> DMA?
>
> --
> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>
>

"jallaballa" <jallaballa@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:9B907B3F-FF82-4A00-B5CB-90659BE259F6@microsoft.com...
>I checked the device manager as you said and two of the channels have DMA
> activated and the other two don't have the option on the advanced settings
> tab.
>
> http://i7.tinypic.com/2l8vgk7.png
> The ones i highlighted have the DMA checkbox checked.
>
> I could also mention my computers specification:
> Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz
> 1535 MB RAM
> One 250 GB HDD and two 120 GB in RAID 0 on promise 378
> asus p4p800-e mother board
> ati radeon 9800 pro 128 MB
> sound blaster audigy se
>
> "Rock" wrote:
>
>> Check if the drive is in PIO mode instead of DMA. Start Orb | Type
>> Device
>> manager | Click on it (or if not running as an administrator right click
>> and
>> choose Run as Administrator). Expand the a hard drive controller
>> section,
>> double click on the Channel, and click the Advanced Settings tab. PIO or
>> DMA?


Ok sorry that didn't help. It was a flyer. Just saw a problem similar to
yours in the XP newsgroup and that's how it was resolved. The next step
would be to look at the video driver.

--
Rock [MVP - User/Shell]

> Ok sorry that didn't help. It was a flyer. Just saw a problem similar to
> yours in the XP newsgroup and that's how it was resolved. The next step
> would be to look at the video driver.
>
> --
> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>
>

I updated my driver to the catalyst that came out jan 29 but that didn't
help. I made some more screen shots after I discovered that only one of the
two cpu's are used during the spikes. I know that it's not actually two cpu's
but it looks that way in task manager because of the hyperthreading. Maybe
Vista doesn't like hyperthreading?

http://i7.tinypic.com/35lxbo3.png problem
http://i5.tinypic.com/2remdn7.png plain

This time I rebooted the computer, installed the new video driver and let it
idle. Then I took the first screen shot and when it started freezing again I
closed all applications and let it idle again. The red marks are cpu spikes
created by me when i opened snipping tool and when i made the window larger.

I had similar problems with an oem drive controller using a promise chip. If
you have something different to try. It could help

"jallaballa" <jallaballa@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:C625B406-E35B-44A7-A1A0-4212D3AF2864@microsoft.com...
>> Ok sorry that didn't help. It was a flyer. Just saw a problem similar
>> to
>> yours in the XP newsgroup and that's how it was resolved. The next step
>> would be to look at the video driver.
>>
>> --
>> Rock [MVP - User/Shell]
>>
>>
>
> I updated my driver to the catalyst that came out jan 29 but that didn't
> help. I made some more screen shots after I discovered that only one of
> the
> two cpu's are used during the spikes. I know that it's not actually two
> cpu's
> but it looks that way in task manager because of the hyperthreading. Maybe
> Vista doesn't like hyperthreading?
>
> http://i7.tinypic.com/35lxbo3.png problem
> http://i5.tinypic.com/2remdn7.png plain
>
> This time I rebooted the computer, installed the new video driver and let
> it
> idle. Then I took the first screen shot and when it started freezing again
> I
> closed all applications and let it idle again. The red marks are cpu
> spikes
> created by me when i opened snipping tool and when i made the window
> larger.

I think that was it! I updated the promise 378 driver to a newer one for
xp/win2003 and this time I used the driver for win 2003. The problem seems to
have gone away. So don't use promise 1.00.1.37, use the 1.00.1.39 instead.

Should I generally use a driver for win 2003 instead of a xp driver when
that's the only choices I have for vista?



"jo" wrote:

> I had similar problems with an oem drive controller using a promise chip. If
> you have something different to try. It could help
>

Looks like I spoke too soon. The problem still exists and judging from the
resource manager it has no correlation with the disk activity but of course I
could be wrong there.

And to be clear about the setup I use, I have Vista on the hdd controlled by
intel ich5 and the promise 378 only controls the raid unit which only holds
my music, videos and games. But the problem still occurs when playing video
from the other hdd as well as when the computer's just idling.