Whacky pauses & CPU utilization

L

legrand

Weaksauce
Joined
Mar 30, 2004
Messages
79
First, look at the pic of the CPU Utilization: http://www.meche.net/cpu.jpg
What's happening is that about every second the cpu utilization goes from around zero to around 40% then back to zero, etc. (I put the refresh on fast in that picture). There's nothing really running that should be causing this. When I check the processes, nothing comes up as eating up that 40% for a second or so. When this happens, if I move my cursor continuously around the screen, it pauses here and there, every second or so.

This is a random problem, has been occuring for the last couple of weeks. I just received Q4 and can't play it because it does this freezing in the game. I looked in a thread about sluggish boot times, and I can tell you this, the slave on my primary IDE got weird around the same time, clicking and such. It eventually quieted down, but acted up again today (more noise) so I removed it from that channel (and the machine). This skipping problem has happened even when the slave was quiet, and even now although it's offline. I went and checked and the primary master (not where Q4 resides, but, obviously where the OS resides) is running in PIO mode. I don't seem to have any option to change it myself (back to DMA). Will XP finally figure this out itself and change it back to DMA?

Do you think this is the problem? Or is there somewhere else I should be looking?

I have XP SP2, Anti Virus software running, as well as checked for spyware and such using A squared, Spybot and Adaware, not to mention I'm behind a router. Guess I'm trying to say I don't think it's a bug like that.

Other system specs: Athlon XP 3000+ on a Gigabyte GA7NNXP w/ 1gb ram, X800 Vid Card, 5 CD/DVD drives (2 scsi) 4 sata drives (2 in raid) and 2 IDE drives (one for OS, one for pictures)

Thanks for any assistance.
 
Yes, that is the problem.

Unplug the drive, restart, turn it off, and plug it back in. It should then run in DMA mode and your problems will go away.
 
Check the BIOS and make sure DMA, or Ultra DMA, is enabled for all IDE channels.
 
Actually, if that drive is clicking, you'd better look into backing up your data ASAP because the drive may be failing.

After you've done this, run integrity diagnostic tests on the drive using the respective manufacturer's software.
 
If the above suggestions don't work, see if you have a process called cthelper.exe running. It comes with creative soundcards and can cause similar problems to what you're experiencing. If it is running just end it :)
 
The drive is still running in PIO mode, even with the other (bad one) disconnected and the computer rebooted a couple of times. I also shut down the cthelper program (permanently). I checked the BOIS and there's nothing there regarding DMA. There also doesn't seem to be any way to force DMA mode in windows xp.

Odd thing is that it seems to only really be affecting q4. I can play Serious sam2 and Psychonauts and q3 all fine, but Q4 has this weird stutter to it. As I said, it's installed on a different drive from the OS (on a raid setup actually) where all the games are.

Any other ideas?
 
Essentially, you're going to want to get out of PIO mode no matter what. Keep trying everything you can to get the computer to re-recognize it. Try it on other computers too to see if it's a problem with the drive, though most of the time, it's just a setting issue that windows needs to re-detect.

Also, try running the drive on different channels. Once this is resolved, see if Q4 will work better. PIO mode is a real PITA.
 
Well, you were right. Thanks! Q4 runs fine now that I got it back in DMA mode (and windows loads like it used to).

I went to the Maxtor website and found this:
Question: Why is my drive using PIO mode instead of DMA in Windows XP?
trnsp.gif

Answer:
Problem: The drive controller is set to use "DMA if available" but reports to be only in PIO mode. User cannot turn on DMA for ATA device. The only option for the user who wants to enable DMA mode is to uninstall and reinstall the affected channel, "Primary IDE Channel" or "Secondary IDE Channel". Reboot the system and Windows XP will reinstall the driver for the channel.
Click to expand...
Worked like a charm.
https://maxtor.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/maxtor.cfg/php/enduser/olh_adp.php?p_faqid=1326&p_sid=OCDiGsSh&p_lva=#
 
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