Program Lag

[switchfoot13]

Hello all.

I'm thinking this might be a hardware issue, hence putting this into the hardware section instead of software. Though it could very well be a driver issue

Rig:
Antec P180B case
430W Antec HE PSU
Core2duo E6400
Asus P5LD2/C mobo
3GB PC53000 RAM
2x250GB WD HDDs
Aardvark Pro Q10 soundcard
Asus 7300 LE VGA

I use it primarily for Audio editing/recording. I've installed a few different audio/video programs to try out (winamp,vlan, bsplayer, wmp classic). What happens is when I open up a program like winamp to play either an audio or video file it freezes/becomes unresponsive after a few seconds. Trying to restart the computer freezes everything up. Trying to close the program also freezes the computer up. I recently installed C&C3 and it also freezes at the load screen. Can this have something to do with faulty hardware or could it be a driver conflict?

What could cause this sort of thing?
Thanks in advance

 

[Lemon13]

i would suspect the ram, get memtest and let it run for at least 1 hour.
what might help is: if ur bios has in ram settings normal, fast, turbo.... select the lower setting

 

[BadBigBen]

Could be the INDEXING SERVICE or Prefetch ...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."

 

[wahnula]

Assuming you did a clean install (not re-using an existing HDD w/ OS on it) with minimum components connected, installed chipset drivers, installed AV, updated AV, updated Windows, added components one at a time along with their latest drivers your problems could be related to thermal issues or bad power.

RAM could also be the culprit. Since it's a new build, I would start over from scratch, following the sequence above, with one change. Whether your 2X250 HDDs are in RAID 1 or just two drives, when you enter the "create new partition" part of the install, create a 20-30 GB partition for Windows. This will speed up performance.

 

[switchfoot13]

Thanks for all of the help so far.

Yes, your assumption was correct. This is a fresh build. Since it is primarily used for recording I have no need to for internet access on the computer and with that no AV program. I did update windows when I installed the OS.

Regarding RAM. I've had memtest running for the last 4 1/2 hours with no errors, so I can presumably assume that my RAM is not the culprit.

I don't think it's a heat issue. I have 3 120in case fans and use a Zalman 9500 heatsink with thermal grease. Using Cubase to record 8 tracks and having a project with over 40 tracks runs just fine. The freezing only happens when I use an audio/video application.

 

[switchfoot13]

Alright, problem seemingly solved. I can't tell until I test more.

I had disable my onboard soundcard in favor of using the extra studio card. When I enabled this card in the Device Manager my files played just fine and the game started up as well.

Curious....