Strange Repeating Drops in FPS?

[Alienraptor]

I'm putting this in General because I really have no idea what is causing it. Whenever I'm playing a game and there is continuous animation that makes FPS noticeable (such as a scrolling message, a moving car, running forward, etc.) I can see clearly that there is a significant drop in framerate at a consistent interval. In NFSU2, this happens once about every three seconds; I notice that the car's movement jerks a little without any variation in RPM or speed. It's not as jerky as stuttering, but it's more of a little tug.

My hardware is as listed in my signature. I also have an SB Audigy, as well as the onboard SB Live! chip on the motherboard. I point this out because when I ran 3DMark03, I found that this effect was almost never present, except during the sound test. In that case, it actually jerked very significantly every two seconds or so. Any ideas would be nice; I really have no idea what's causing it.

 

[D3v1an7]

I would suggest making sure you have the onboard sound disabled in the BIOS (if possible) or device manager. Then I would suggest updating your sound drivers to the most current from Creative. If that doesn't fix the problem, try using the Windows SB drivers.

In general, make sure all your drivers are up to date.

Also make sure you don't have any unnecessary applications running in the background.