Since day one, I have had a headache of a problem, and nVidia has not been
much
of help in finding a solution. Perhaps I can find one here. I have
repeatedly
had issues with audio stuttering, and even dropping out for up to 5-6~
seconds at
a time. It happens in _any_ media player, including WMP11. It primarily
happens
when there is alot of disk activity on the primary sata drive mainly.
Hardware will follow, but heres a list of things I've tried, and what they
accomplished :



- Updated nVidia nforce drivers to latest for the AMD/Nforce4 platform(15.01)
- Updated ATI Video drivers, Catalyst 7.8 (tried older versions from 7.2 on)
- Updated Realtek Audio Drivers (6243 for vista 32 bit)
- Reflashed BIOS with current (worth a try...)
- Windows Scan the primary drive (including bad sector scan/recovery) came
clean
- Maxtor utilities to run diagnostics, everything checked okay there too.
- Removed add-on raid card (Silicon Image 3114) (still stutters ...)

None so much as came close, and the nforce drivers worsened it, so they've
been
downgraded back to the 15.00 version for the SATA/IDE.

Forced the HAL to ACPI PC (not ACPI x86), at which point, I lost 1 logical
processor, but the stutter is almost non existent. (still there under heavy
disk
access but almost unnoticable)

Further, I went, and forced PIO Mode on the OS drive. Rebooted, and not so
much
as a stutter. BUT, hard drive performance dropped like a rock, as did the
PC's
performance, suffering the lack of the second processor.

I've since run msconfig, redetected the proper HAL, rebooted again (and
again),
and left the OS drive in PIO Mode, and the stutter is almost completely
gone, but
I am left with random 5+ second drops in audio from any source, Winamp,
WMP11,
ZoomPlayer, and such, regardless of source, DVD, CD audio, MP3, all of them
drop
off randomly. And these drops don't necessarily happen with disk activity,
or high cpu usage, they are, for lack of a better word random.

Further notes of interest :

I did a full backup of vista, wiped out (and completely removed the drive it
was
on), and restored to a _brand new_ Maxtor 200 GB ATA133 HDD, and the problem
significantly lessened, (but still occurs under heavy hdd load) but again, I
had
to disable DMA on the drive, which again, huge performance hit. I have been
at
this for many weeks off and on, trying to find the best possibly combination
of
quick fixes, and am at my wits end. I either have to sacrifice performance
on
the disk side, or lose an entire processor, just to have a wonderful HTPC
experience ?

Hardware Configuration/Specs :

Computer
Computer Type ACPI x86-based PC
Operating System Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate
OS Service Pack -
Internet Explorer 7.0.6000.16512
DirectX DirectX 10.0
Date / Time 2007-08-29 / 15:09

Motherboard
CPU Type DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3800+
Motherboard Name DFI Infinity NF UltraII-M2/g / NF SLI II-M2 / NFII-M2
Motherboard Chipset nVIDIA nForce4, AMD Hammer
System Memory 2048 MB (DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (08/09/06)

Display
Video Adapter Radeon X1300/X1550 Series (256 MB)
Video Adapter Radeon X1300/X1550 Series (256 MB)
3D Accelerator ATI Radeon X1300 (RV515)

Multimedia
Audio Adapter Realtek ALC850 @ nVIDIA nForce4 (CK8-04) - Audio Codec Interface

Storage
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller
IDE Controller NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller
IDE Controller Nvidia nForce ATA Controller
Storage Controller Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
Storage Controller SCSI/RAID Host Controller
Storage Controller Silicon Image SiI 3114 SATARaid Controller
Disk Drive Maxtor 7 H500F0 SCSI Disk Device (500 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
Disk Drive SAMSUNG HD400LJ SCSI Disk Device (400 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
Disk Drive SAMSUNG HD400LJ SCSI Disk Device (400 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-II)
Disk Drive WDC WD50 00AAKS-00TMA0 SCSI Disk Device (465 GB)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-H42L ATA Device
Optical Drive PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-110D ATA Device (DVD+R9:8x, DVD-R9:8x,
DVD+RW:16x/8x, DVD-RW:16x/6x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:40x/32x/40x DVD+RW/DVD-RW)
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Network Adapter NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller

Peripherals
FireWire Controller VIA VT6307 Fire IIM IEEE1394 Host Controller (PHY: VIA

VT6307)
USB1 Controller nVIDIA nForce4 (CK8-04) - OHCI USB 1.1 Controller
USB2 Controller nVIDIA nForce4 (CK8-04) - EHCI USB 2.0 Controller
USB Device USB Composite Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device
USB Device USB Human Interface Device

DMI
DMI BIOS Vendor Phoenix Technologies, LTD
DMI BIOS Version 6.00 PG



IF by chance, anyone has solved this problem (a quick google, turns up
thousands
of people having this particular issue, not just nforce based boards, and not
just realtek audio chips,) a fresh look at the problem would be a great help !
I've searched through alot of the groups, and still haven't found a fix that
works for me.

One more small note, I can reboot to XP and everything works absolutely fine!

Sincerely,

CT

Okay, I managed to fix my own problem with the stutter and such. I had a BIG
hint when I was browsing a folder with a few hundred documents in it, I
edited the detail view to eliminate the TAG column, at which the stuttering
almost disappeared.

Following along the logical train of thought, I kept an eye on the disk
activity/reads/writes and lo and behold ...

So here's what I tried ...

Device Manager, IDE/ATAPI Controllers -> uninstalled the nvidia nforce sata
controller (secondary first, youll have to check), i did secondary first,
then the primary, rebooted to safe mode to make sure (it didnt uninstall the
drivers of course), so did it there, rebooted, when it came back up ...
The drivers it showed, were the original MS drivers, at which point I
reinstalled the nvidia 15.00 SATA/IDE drivers, another reboot, found new
hardware (all my drives), and another reboot ... Now just like in XP all of
my SATA drives on the onboard controller are listed as removable devices,
BUT, no major stuttering!

It still stutters, but I do alot of graphics and media work, plus watch ALOT
of tv and videos, so even XP had a difficult time dealing with me. But this
seems to have almost completely eliminated any stuttering in audio or video
playback, even 1080i full screen.

I sincerely hope this help someone else solve it, I would hate to think that
I spent weeks banging against vista (again), in a vain effort !

Chris