Can I disable 'onboard PCI bridge' on an Intel P67 motherboard?

[dderidex]

As above - it occurs to me that I have *no* PCI devices on the system. At least, I think.

Now, back in the day, I recall that many other things ran on the PCI bus - IDE ports, USB ports, etc.

Is this still true on a P67 system? I would have assumed not - I'd think everything I'm using should be on the PCIe, LPC, or DMI bus. But...looking at Windows device manager, when 'viewing resources by connection', under 'input/output', literally EVERYTHING on the system is listed as being on a 'PCI bus'. From the video card and sound card to the system ram and CPU! Is this just an artifact of that interface?

(Goal is to clean up my IRQ usage some - have some annoying audio stutters in Source-engine games...I know, I know...but I DIDN'T have any such thing on an AMD system I had before this Sandy Bridge build, so looking around for things I can tweak or remove to try to resolve the issue)

 

[xDezor]

It is my understanding that nothing else is relying on the PCI bus. I suggest you try it out and see. I would also be interested in hearing the results (I play source a lot).

 

[dderidex]

It is my understanding that nothing else is relying on the PCI bus. I suggest you try it out and see. I would also be interested in hearing the results (I play source a lot).

I did try this, last night.

While nothing stopped working...situation didn't improve. *sigh*

Yeah, those Source audio stutters are really annoying (that is: the brief game freeze/stutter just before a new sound plays). Didn't happen at all on either of my AMD systems, I'm wondering if this isn't a problem with Intel.

 

[Forceman]

I did try this, last night.

While nothing stopped working...situation didn't improve. *sigh*

Yeah, those Source audio stutters are really annoying (that is: the brief game freeze/stutter just before a new sound plays). Didn't happen at all on either of my AMD systems, I'm wondering if this isn't a problem with Intel.

Is it possibly some kind of hard drive delay while the new sound file is loaded? I don't know how source handles sound, but if it only happens when a new sound is played that could be a factor.

Have you tried checking your DPC latency?

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

 

[dderidex]

Is it possibly some kind of hard drive delay while the new sound file is loaded? I don't know how source handles sound, but if it only happens when a new sound is played that could be a factor.

Have you tried checking your DPC latency?

http://www.thesycon.de/deu/latency_check.shtml

Yup, and I do get spikes on that. Doesn't tell you WHAT, of course.

There is another DPC latency tool that does tell you what (service, driver, etc) is causing spikes...but that particular DPC latency tool doesn't actually SHOW any spikes!

I have taken the recommendation of the above tool to 'disable devices' and have disabled every device on the system that I possibly CAN (including - see this thread - the entire PCI bus). No effect.

That only really leaves 'replacing hardware' piece at a time as an option, but that hardly seems like it will prove fruitful, as I was seeing the problem even with all the hardware I was using was moved OVER from my old AMD box - except for the CPU, motherboard, and ram. I've since replaced the soundcard (PCI X-Fi replaced with a PCI-E X-Fi) and video card (Radeon 5770 replaced with a Geforce 560) and replaced the hard drive the games are on (Western Digital 640gb Caviar 'Black' with a Western Digital 1.5tb Caviar 'Black'), all with no effect.

 

[xDezor]

Just remembered some stuff...

This may or may not apply to you, as I don't know if sandybridge even has options like this anymore, but on my Intel 775 machine I had problems with source stuttering. Eventually I had to disable AMD C1E powersaving support in bios. It seems that my CPU was downclocking itself while in game if I wasn't using much of it. I'm not sure exactly why, but it was very annoying. The few ms it would take to reapply the correct multiplier was causing problems. I eventually went ahead and disabled powersavings mode on my nvidia 260GTX aswell and in windows 7... My rig is hotter than the sun, but I live in a cold climate with free electricity. Might not be a good idea in summer though.

Apparently the C1E thing is pretty common. If you have nvidia 3D, they even recommend disabling it on their forum to get rid of hiccups. The other things I did probably aren't necessary.

Have you tried disabling sound entirely in your source games to see if that has any effect? Valve recommends you try that as a first step in troubleshooting low framerates and whatnot. Of course, I was never able to figure out exactly how you go about doing that, as they don't specify in the thread I was reading, but it's a combination of a console command and editing a config file from what I can tell (if anyone knows how, please tell me). I don't have the link for that thread handy, but it's on their support forum.

Or... it could be the X-Fi... Supposedly Creative is very bad with their drivers. I've been using a Creative Audigy 2 ZS since 2004 without any problems whatsoever though, so idk what they're talking about. Have you tried using the onboard sound to see if that has any effect?

Hopefully some of that info will help.