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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: bloodline on November 02, 2003, 04:12:41 PM
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As the subject says, I've been having random mouse freezes in WinXP, I've been keeping a carefull eye on the task list but can't see any thing strange...
does any one have any ideas how to solve this problem?
It's a pain, as the audio stops as well, the freezes last for about a second or so. As I used this machine for producing music, and jitters in the audio stream are bad (tm).
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You must be mistaken, most of the marketing literature and WinXP proponents tell me WinXP can't or doesn't lock up.
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now I'm very serious on that:
HAVE YOU INSTALLED ANY WINDOWS FIXES FROM AUTOUPDATE??? IF YES THIS SHOULD BE IT. REMOVE THEM AND YOU WILL SEE.
I have the same problem. If I install a service pack (like SP1) everything is fine and smooth. On the other hand, if I install a single patch (say a security-fix) my system starts locking up at random times, and everyone who used windows 2000/XP knows that it may be more stable than 9x, but if it crashes, there's no other way than the reset button on the box.
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Ok, This happened before I had installed anything on it. Then I put Logic Audio, Sound Forge, Reason 2.0 on it. Then I installed all the service pack, updates etc from M$.
And still it happens. I have just noticed that often the freezes happen to coincide with HD access, I'm wondering if I had some odd settings somewhere.
I have made sure the drive does not spin down (power saving), and I can't find any other cache options. I have installed the latest IDE drivers from the chipset vendors website... still the machine stutters :-(
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Have you installed new hardware lately? Updated drivers etc ?
Btw do u have AMD or P4?
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restore2003 wrote:
Have you installed new hardware lately? Updated drivers etc ?
Btw do u have AMD or P4?
The machine is a brand new P4 3.06Ghz with 512Meg.
It does the job really well, able to handle Logic and Reason at the same time with hardly any CPU usage. But the stutters are really annoying.
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Im also a musician :-) Only use synths and drummachines though.....
It sounds to be a soundcard problem, what card u have? Is it only happening when playing music?
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It's a pain, as the audio stops as well, the freezes last for about a second or so. As I used this machine for producing music, and jitters in the audio stream are bad (tm).
Freezes for one sec then starts working normally again? then freezes again after some random time?
Or does it freeze completly so that reset is only escape?
I had a very similar problem like this... Turned out to be the drivers for the promise raid/ultra cards... the same thing happened on both of them... i think the ide bus would reset, which caused the whole system to freeze up completly for a sec and then work normally for another min or so before it happened again..
Installing the older version of the drivers completly solved the problem.
EDIT:
might be a dying disk also
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restore2003 wrote:
Im also a musician :-) Only use synths and drummachines though.....
It sounds to be a soundcard problem, what card u have? Is it only happening when playing music?
No I don't think it's a Sound card problem (I'm only using the internal SiS 7012 at the moment, Echo Indigo IO here I come :-) ), as the lockups seem to happen when when the hard drive is being accessed. I've increased the disk buffers in Logic to see if that helps, it doesnt :-(
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Tomas wrote:
It's a pain, as the audio stops as well, the freezes last for about a second or so. As I used this machine for producing music, and jitters in the audio stream are bad (tm).
Freezes for one sec then starts working normally again? then freezes again after some random time?
Or does it freeze completly so that reset is only escape?
I had a very similar problem like this... Turned out to be the drivers for the promise raid/ultra cards... the same thing happened on both of them... i think the ide bus would reset, which caused the whole system to freeze up completly for a sec and then work normally for another min or so before it happened again..
Installing the older version of the drivers completly solved the problem.
Spot on, freezes for a second and then runs fine. I wouldn't really care that much, but the audio stops for that second too!
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As the subject says, I've been having random mouse freezes in WinXP, I've been keeping a carefull eye on the task list but can't see any thing strange...
It could be one of a very large number of different problems. Badly configured hardware is one of the worse possibilities, though I'd be inclined to go with badly configured OS, in the form of old drivers. Update as many as you can.
(Factory installs tend to use old drivers already, so I'd advise against downgrading them 'again' :-))
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I had a very similar problem like this... Turned out to be the drivers for the promise raid/ultra cards... the same thing happened on both of them... i think the ide bus would reset, which caused the whole system to freeze up completly for a sec and then work normally for another min or so before it happened again..
Spot on, freezes for a second and then runs fine. I wouldn't really care that much, but the audio stops for that second too!
My guess (and this is coming from someone who has a couple NT4 certs) is chipset drivers.
You didn't mention what chipset your mobo is, but certainly VIA *MUST* be running very recent 4-in-1 drivers. Most every person who says VIA chipsets are crap hasn't updated their drivers properly. They run like absolute dogsh!t until you download the latest versions. The driver CD that ships in the box is worthless, and the built-in Windows drivers cause all sorts of problems.
Intel chipsets aren't as fussy, but they SHOULD also be running Intel's drivers for your chipset, anyhow. I just trust Intel to know their own chipsets better than MS would.
Not sure how SiS is on drivers, because I've always avoided them.
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Ilwrath wrote:
I had a very similar problem like this... Turned out to be the drivers for the promise raid/ultra cards... the same thing happened on both of them... i think the ide bus would reset, which caused the whole system to freeze up completly for a sec and then work normally for another min or so before it happened again..
Spot on, freezes for a second and then runs fine. I wouldn't really care that much, but the audio stops for that second too!
My guess (and this is coming from someone who has a couple NT4 certs) is chipset drivers.
You didn't mention what chipset your mobo is, but certainly VIA *MUST* be running very recent 4-in-1 drivers. Most every person who says VIA chipsets are crap hasn't updated their drivers properly. They run like absolute dogsh!t until you download the latest versions. The driver CD that ships in the box is worthless, and the built-in Windows drivers cause all sorts of problems.
Intel chipsets aren't as fussy, but they SHOULD also be running Intel's drivers for your chipset, anyhow. I just trust Intel to know their own chipsets better than MS would.
Not sure how SiS is on drivers, because I've always avoided them.
Yeah, I'm on a SiS 645DX chipset. I've updated to the latest drivers.. all I can think now is that my HD is crap :-/ but I've never had freezing due to a crap HD before.
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Yeah, I'm on a SiS 645DX chipset.
Figures... A chipset I know nothing about. haha! Anyhow, it could be a bad configuration with that chipset. Maybe some type of DMA or IO conflict. You might try hitting some support forums for that chipset, and see if others are having the same problem. Odds are, they are... And there may be some configuration help already posted.
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Yeah, I'm on a SiS 645DX chipset. I've updated to the latest drivers.. all I can think now is that my HD is crap :-/ but I've never had freezing due to a crap HD before.
my ibm 75gxp did this a few weeks before it died... then after a while it would freeze up totally, not being able to even boot the computer with the disk connected
but yeah as other said... the cause can be many... i would suggest you try to unhook any disks you do not need have to use to boot the sys up
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Yeah, I'm on a SiS 645DX chipset
My experience of SiS chipsets is limited, despite my current machine having one (SiS 735). But my experiences have been that they're a bit 50/50 in terms of good/bad chipset. Thankfully my current one isn't bad :-)
Why do I have an SiS chipset mobo in light of my experiences, I hear you ask? Remind me not to listen to friends again :-)
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It's hard to say off hand without knowing all about your hardware/software configuration. If you really think it's the hard drive access, make sure your cable is good, I've had weird things happen with faulty 80pin IDE cables. What mobo & cpu are you using?
First thing I would do is check your BIOS settings. Make sure you have the IDE set to UDMA and then in WinXP verify that you are indeed running at UDMA (if you have an 80pin IDE cable you should be running at UDMA 5 or 6 (ATA100/ATA133) on your hard drive).
Also, some BIOSes have options to "Load fail safe settings" or "Load High Performance settings", try loading the fail safe settings as the high perf. settings tend to speed up chip timings which can cause strange errors.
Of course you can also check to see if there are newer BIOS updates, that too could fix things.
On the WinXP side of things, updating drivers is of course a given, that should be done. Things to update are the chipset drivers, video drivers, sound drivers, network card drivers, USB drivers (if they are not part of the chipset drivers), video capture drivers, etc. And you should do some research on all those drivers as well because sometimes the latest versions of the drivers have known problems. For example, when I installed the latest video capture drivers for my GeForce2 Deluxe card (v1.23) the video capture feature worked fine except that half the image was blank. To make it work properly I had to track down version 1.06. Not sure why the newer versions of the driver don't work, but it's a common problem and I was able to find many posts on forums about it. Hopefully you won't need to go through any of that ####.
A good way to track down weird hardware problems is by disabling (or removing) certain hardware components. Tracking it down to a particular hardware component will make your life that much easier. Perhaps disable your sound card and see if that still causes your lockups. If not, then disable your network card. Disable all your USB, COM1/2 and parallel ports, video capture, CD-ROMs and even swap around IDE cables.
Then start disabling software. MSConfig can be a useful diagnostic tool. Shut everything off and then see if it still happens. If not, then turn things on one at a time until the problem acts up.
Also run msinfo32 (System Information) and take note of Hardware Resources->Conflict/Sharing. Make sure there are no conflicts and take note of what devices share with which other devices. Sometimes devices don't share well with particular devices. If those devices are on the PCI bus, you can usually move them around from slot to slot and they will be given different IRQs. Check your mobo manual to see which slot is associated with which IRQ or INT.
Also, in the System properties, there's a little check box to "Disable random lockups". Make sure it's checked. ;-)
- Mike
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Also, in the System properties, there's a little check box to "Disable random lockups". Make sure it's checked.
Ahhh that's the cause!!! :-P Hahahahahahahahahahah
I forgot to say that I'm running on a laptop, and the Harddrive is running in UDMA5 (at least windows reports it as such, the DVD-R/RW is running at UDMA4).
I can find only one BIOS update for my Machine, but it is from a different company to the brand of my Laptop (Though I know they all use the same internals), so I don't want to do any BIOS flashing at all (since I have no comeback when I fcuk it up).
Side note: When the Task manager is open sometimes the little CPU usage gauge doesn't appear in the systray, that really annoys me, sometimes it works, sometimes not...
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Side note: When the Task manager is open sometimes the little CPU usage gauge doesn't appear in the systray, that really annoys me, sometimes it works, sometimes not...
Not sure this is related, but, I had weird things happen with my system tray as well. Icons would not show up at times, and would other times. After much digging around on the net I discovered that the UPnP service can cause this weird little qwerk. Since I didn't need that service I disabled it and since then all my icons in the system tray have been where they should be. Strange but true!
- Mike
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I forgot to say that I'm running on a laptop, and the Harddrive is running in UDMA5 (at least windows reports it as such, the DVD-R/RW is running at UDMA4).
Does your BIOS also report UDMA5 or does it list UDMA6? If it says 6, then the reason your WinXP doesn't also run at UDMA6 is because WinXP didn't support ATA133 until SP1. You will need to re-install your IDE/chipset drivers after you install SP1 to bump it up to UDMA6. Here's an explanation as to how it affects VIA chipsets, it's possible SiS are the same: Ultra DMA Mode 6 Devices Are Not Enabled on VIA Motherboards After You Install Windows XP SP1 (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q327805)
- Mike
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WinXP didn't support ATA133 until SP1
Usually Windows reverts to the previous latest technology it can support though - eg. Win2k didn't support ATA100 until SP2, but it still would do ATA66 for ATA100 devices.
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Ok, after a lot of testing and running performance monitors, I have found that when the Random lockups happen, I get a spike of 100% CPU usage, but it is instantanious so I can't see which is the offending task :-(
I have shut down all the services I can and still this happens!!! :-x
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Ok, after a lot of testing and running performance monitors, I have found that when the Random lockups happen, I get a spike of 100% CPU usage, but it is instantanious so I can't see which is the offending task
I have shut down all the services I can and still this happens!!!
Not surprising on both counts. Have you updated all drivers? What's the motherboard model, have you read up about it?
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mikeymike wrote:
Ok, after a lot of testing and running performance monitors, I have found that when the Random lockups happen, I get a spike of 100% CPU usage, but it is instantanious so I can't see which is the offending task
I have shut down all the services I can and still this happens!!!
Not surprising on both counts. Have you updated all drivers? What's the motherboard model, have you read up about it?
I appreciate the help I am getting by the way. You guys are great :-)
Anyway, I punched what I know into Google, and that said to check for CPU overheating.
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Install SiSoft Sandra, a benchmark program, it runs tests of everything u can think of
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Just a thought...
Have you any extra memory inside this laptop?!
I had the same problem in a laptop once and it was caused by a dodgy memory-chip.
Try removing any extra memory and see what happens...
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Unit21 wrote:
Just a thought...
Have you any extra memory inside this laptop?!
I had the same problem in a laptop once and it was caused by a dodgy memory-chip.
Try removing any extra memory and see what happens...
As it happens, I do have extra Memory, but I can't remove it as that would require taking off the warentee sticker :-(
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Anyway, I punched what I know into Google, and that said to check for CPU overheating.
Well the P4 3GHz does spout out a LOT of heat, but the usual symptoms of over-heating CPUs are as follows (in order of likeliness):
- complete hardware lockups (up to and inc. the point of having to pull the power out the back)
- app crashes
- spontaneous reboots (sometimes rebooting properly or not)
- computer doesn't boot full stop :-)
- edit - a 3GHz laptop? Are you nuts? :-)
I still strongly suspect drivers though.
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one question.. did this suddently just happen or has it allways acted like this on XP?
and btw.. the 100% cpu usage spike happened here also.. which was because the ide bus hogged all the cpu. This happened both due to those buggy promise drivers and when my ibm disk died.
I definitely think it is the IDE controller drivers or the disk itself
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Hmm... try PIO just for fun.
Somehow I doubt your CPU is overheating, but it's possible some other components are. Video overheating usually causes weird things to appear on your screen and the occasional lockup/crash. Other things could affect the system in a similarly unpredictable manner. Heat is always a concern.
So what's the lockup pattern like? Does it happen within minutes of booting up or only after it's been on for some time. Does it lockup more when being driven hard (ie, playing games) or even at idle? Is there any particular app that's always running when it locksup?
I suppose with a laptop it's not so easy to diagnose and fix hardware problems when you can't remove or disable the actual parts (although you can still use the Device Manager to disable some devices and the BIOS for others). You may end up having to return it to be serviced so that you don't void your warranty. That kinda sucks, but that's one of the many pitfalls of owning a laptop. Good luck!
Btw, what's the make and model number of your laptop? Just curious.
- Mike
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I think this is a critical update issue with the Pentium 4.
My dad has had a P4 runing XP service pack 1, for over 6 months and it has worked very well. In fact, the speed and noise levels of his system encouraged me to trade up my Athlon for a P4 (and now I'm quite sorry).
About a month ago, he started complaining about sudden freezes, where the mouse would lock up for about a second or so. This happens regularly about every 15 seconds or so for a few minutes, then it would go away. Recently, within the last few weeks, he started complaining about hard resets. Not the BSOD, not a lock-up, but a hard, sudden reset, with no hard drive access, like you pushed the reset button. He has an Asus board with Corsair memory and an Antec power supply. This is NOT cheap hardware, so I was quite baffled.
After "upgrading" from an Athlon to a P4 2.4, I started having similar problems with Win2K service pack 4. Sound in Mediaplayer and Goldwave would skip for no reason, I started getting the BSOD frequently (which I didn't get for 2 years with my Athlon). For the hell of it, I re-installed my system to clean out all the Athlon stuff left behind and did all the WindowsUpdates. Now my system still crashes occasionally, and now gives me the dreaded 1-minute shutdown notice from TASKMGR.EXE. I've gotten that one twice in the last week and it's really getting on my nerves. Memtest86 shows no problem with my memory. FlashPlayer6 (several revisions) are well known to crash like crazy on the P4, but that's all I know.
I really want to know if this is a P4 issue, or if MS is screwing things up, again. If this keeps happening, I might just call my P4 a loss and see if my old Athlon 2600+ fares better.
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Well, I'd love to blame the P4, but there's just so many of those out there I don't think such a problem would be obscure. It's probably a combination of hardware that doesn't work well together. What else does your machine have in common with your fathers? Same mobo perhaps? Are you overclocking or doing any other performance mods? How about your BIOS? Has it been updated? Did you reset it after it was updated?
Luckily, I don't have such problems with my Athlon system, although every now and then my Logitech TrackMan Marble+ stops working and I need to unplug/plug it to make it work again. I think it's the trackman itself though, as I've tried my sister's trackman on my machine and it works fine! Is it just me or is Logitech quality control down the toilet? My Logitech Wingman Extreme 3D also has issues. :-(
- Mike
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Different mobos, no overclocking, updated BIOS. The only thing I can think of is that my dad isn't terribly knowledgeable about computers, and my system has some server stuff running in the background, namely Apache 2.0 and WinMySQLAdmin. I just re-installed my system and all my drivers are up to date, except my nVidia drivers, since I hear the newer Detonator drivers are pretty buggy. Also, my CPU and mobo temps are OK.
Correction: It's not Taskmgr.exe that's the problem. The exact error I get for the 1-minute shutdown notice is:
The system process "C:\WINNT\system32\services.exe" terminated unexpectedly with status code 128. The system will now shut down and restart.
I've gotten that error 3 times today and I'm getting really annoyed.
Logitec seems OK in my book so long as you avoid their bloated drivers. I mean, their driver pack for a PS/2 wheel mouse for NT4 is over 6 megs. WTF?!
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The system process C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\SERVICES.EXE terminated unexpectedly with status code 128. The system will shut down and restart.
This behavior will occur if the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\Lanmanserver\Shares registry key contains references to non-shared objects.
To fix this problem:
01. Restart your computer.
02. Press F8 when the Please select the operating system to start message is displayed.
03. Select Safe Mode on the Windows Advanced Options menu.
04. If you have multiple operating systems, select the instance of Windows 2000 that has the damaged registry key.
05. Use Regedit.exe to navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\lanmanserver\Shares.
06. Press Export Registry File on the Registry menu.
07. Type Save_Shares into the File name box and press Save so that you have a backup.
08. For every Value Name in the right-hand pane, make sure that the Path= value is a valid, existing, shared object, either printer or folder. If the Path= value is not valid, delete the Value Name for this REG_MULTI_SZ data type.
09. Exit the Registry Editor.
10. Restart your computer normally.
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@Paul_Gadd: Thanks! Unfortunately, I didn't see anything there besides my two CD-ROMs and Zip250 drive, and the paths are correct.
I did realize, though, that I had a Playstation disc in the first CD-ROM, because I was using it with the ePSXe emulator. Still, I did have this problem last week, before downloading ePSXe.
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Well, I did a search for you and Paul_Gadd's suggestion seems to be the only real solution out there. Me thinks you may have a hard time tracking this one down. :-(
Just a shot in the dark here, but what anti-virus software are you running?
- Mike
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You guys aren't even looking in the right place here..
when you see services.exe, you should check on what "services" windows is running. It's probably one of them taking your system down when it crashes. It may have a dependency on another service that isn't running and when it calls it, it crashes in a bad way (you probably installed something that runs all the time like a virus checker or something) that go removed when you uninstalled or a dependent service is not running..
Windows "services" are the equivalent of DAEMONs that run under Unix OSes (and yes for you righteous Amiga owners, you have them too in some programs if you run a web server an ftp server etc. It's just a program that runs all the time in the background)...
It's not windows being bloated. The very first thing you need to do is go to the event viewer ( log in under safe mode as directed in an earlier post) and view the event log and find out which of them is ERRORing out.. Most likely it's not anything to do with drivers such as your video driver as it's a separate subsystem (did you install the web server after windows update, that could do it)..
The event log is where you need to start.. go to the control panel and look under "adminstrative tools" and the event viewer. Then go to support.microsoft.com and type in the error the event viewer gives you..
-Don
PS if you are using norton anti-virus try updating that using live update as well as the windows update stuff.
If a service is failing it's not a random lock up and the Amiga people slamming windows need a life..
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The guy who said to disable hardware devices untill it stops locking up is on the right track. You have tried all the driver stuff so I would guess bios or hardware. You should be able to backup your original bios to a floppy disk. If its hardware, diabling the onboard sound in bios, if possable might work but of course no sound. Another possability is bad sectors or scratches on the hard drive. run a checkdisk on your c: drive with all advanced options and see the results.
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Another possability is bad sectors or scratches on the hard drive. run a checkdisk on your c: drive with all advanced options and see the results.
Actually, come to think of it, make sure the recovery console is installed (Installing Windows XP Recovery Console (http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/howto-12.html)) and from the recovery console run chkdsk. I find it does a much better job of fixing things from the recovery console. Worth a shot, especially if you have weird things going on. Worked for me once.
- Mike
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Event viewer shows hundreds of red X's trying to access the CD-ROM. If the Playstation emulator isn't causing that, I guess that's my problem.
Glaucus: I find it does a much better job of fixing things from the recovery console.
Anything in particular? Chkdsk from the command line seems to work fine for me, so long as you schedule a disk check on reboot. The GUI version of chkdsk is useless, and will actually IGNORE any error it can't fix. Stupid.
Is there any way to save a log when running chkdsk? Scandisk under Win98 always told you what it fixed, but chkdsk never seems to give you any useful information unless it's related to partitions.
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Not too sure about the mobile version of the P4 3.06, but I would assume that it would support some form of speed step. Recently I deployed around 40 IBM R40's with the new Pentium M cpu (a P4 that uses less power) and I have noticed similar problems occuring with them. Speedstep slows your cpu down during periods of no/low cpu activity to save power and reduce temperature, what I have noticed is that the cpu slows down too much, to the point that it is like using an XT, and then the speed shoots back up again. You should be able to disable it via BIOS orPower Management. Its probably a long shot, but its all I could think of besides whats already been mentioned.
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mikeymike wrote:
Anyway, I punched what I know into Google, and that said to check for CPU overheating.
Well the P4 3GHz does spout out a LOT of heat, but the usual symptoms of over-heating CPUs are as follows (in order of likeliness):
- complete hardware lockups (up to and inc. the point of having to pull the power out the back)
- app crashes
- spontaneous reboots (sometimes rebooting properly or not)
- computer doesn't boot full stop :-)
- edit - a 3GHz laptop? Are you nuts? :-)
I still strongly suspect drivers though.
Well, a Sysinfo shows that it's not overheating. :-D -Edit- my CPU is not the Mobile one it is the desktop one.
The Machine just freezes for about a second and then goes on it's merry way (though the lockups often happen in a cluster, 5 happening in the sace of a minute).
XP has always done this on this Laptop.
I'm going to try Safe Mode tonight and give Linux a quick go and see how they perform.
I personally think it is a dodgy IDE driver. Even though I have the latest driver. PIO mode will be tested (and the other UDMA modes).
3Ghz, I hear you cry! Well I want to be able to run some seriously cycle hungry music programs (soft synths and effects) all at the same time, when I'm on stage.
Memo: look for some ASIO drivers...
My Mobo number is the common N251S6 (if anyone has any experinece with these I would be very greatful).
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my CPU is not the Mobile one it is the desktop one.
In a laptop?!? :-o That would probably end up melting components, the keyboard mould particularly!
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mikeymike wrote:
my CPU is not the Mobile one it is the desktop one.
In a laptop?!? :-o That would probably end up melting components, the keyboard mould particularly!
It's got a great fan! pumps out heat like some kind of industrial space heater. :-D
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Do you have the Indexing Service enabled? This service will index all the files on your HD for fast searches and can slow down HD access.
Disable it via Services.msc or uninstall via Add/Remove Windows Components.
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pjhutch wrote:
Do you have the Indexing Service enabled? This service will index all the files on your HD for fast searches and can slow down HD access.
Disable it via Services.msc or uninstall via Add/Remove Windows Components.
Yup, disabled that as soon as I got it out of the box :-)
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It's got a great fan! pumps out heat like some kind of industrial space heater
How big is this laptop???
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15" display and it's about: 32cm by 28cm and about 3cm high.
It weighs about 4Kg (though I'm sure it's more, and its carry bag is about a Kilo too)... I really am weak :-P
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How did you even get a retail desktop P4 CPU into a laptop?
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mikeymike wrote:
How did you even get a retail desktop P4 CPU into a laptop?
It came like that... I know it's not a mobile verison because I can check the CPU_ID.
It also has a rather nice 64Meg Mobile Radion 9000, wich is a massive leap over the old TNT2 in my desktop. Anyway... I'll stop before I go even more off topic... hmmm, I actually have it sat next to me in the office, but my Boss wasn't really very keen on me using it at work :-( I tried to tell him I was sorting out a problem but I had to conceed that it had nothing to do with my work :lol:
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The power requirements for a desktop P4 3GHz would drain your battery in no time though...
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mikeymike wrote:
The power requirements for a desktop P4 3GHz would drain your battery in no time though...
Well, the CPU info prorgam I used said that my CPU was running at 83Watts. My battery is a 6Ah 20Volt Li-ION, which works out to be 120Watts... etc...
I've not run it on the battery yet so I don't know.
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mikeymike wrote:
my CPU is not the Mobile one it is the desktop one.
In a laptop?!? :-o That would probably end up melting components, the keyboard mould particularly!
Yeah, I agree, the desktop version would probably melt everything, plus it would draw so much power your battery life would be measured in minutes not hours. I suspect you mean you have the Pentium 4 M, as opposed to the Centrino Pentium M.
- Mike
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Well, the CPU info prorgam I used said that my CPU was running at 83Watts. My battery is a 6Ah 20Volt Li-ION, which works out to be 120Watts... etc...
Ok, so back to this problem - does the mouse pointer stutter when the machine is idle? If not, I think we've found the problem :-)
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Having said what I just said, I still can't see how you could practically fit a desktop P4 CPU into a laptop. It would need something like the heatsink sticking through the keyboard and a large fan on top :-)
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mikeymike wrote:
Well, the CPU info prorgam I used said that my CPU was running at 83Watts. My battery is a 6Ah 20Volt Li-ION, which works out to be 120Watts... etc...
Ok, so back to this problem - does the mouse pointer stutter when the machine is idle? If not, I think we've found the problem :-)
Nope, the mouse pointer (and more annoyingly the audio) stutters most often during Hard disk access... But sometines it can just happen randomly, four or five stutters in a row for no apparent reason.
Since this does not happen on My DVD drive, (UDMA4), I might try and set my HD to UDMA4 and see if the problem is cured.
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Hmmm... Most curious. Did you mention the make/model of your laptop? I would like to just look up the official specs on a web site.
Also, perhaps go into msinfo32 and select File->Export, and then post the resulting file so we can have a good look at your system. Edit it out anything you don't want us to see. :-)
- Mike
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How fast is the hard disk? 7200RPM?
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Glaucus wrote:
Hmmm... Most curious. Did you mention the make/model of your laptop? I would like to just look up the official specs on a web site.
Also, perhaps go into msinfo32 and select File->Export, and then post the resulting file so we can have a good look at your system. Edit it out anything you don't want us to see. :-)
- Mike
I'm not sure there is anything that I don't want you to see on my Laptop as It's a dedicated music workstation, nothing exciting on there ;-)
Mikey: 7200!!! you mst be joking... after spending a grand on a laptop I can't aford a super duper HD like that :lol: Saddly mine is only 4600 :boohoo:
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Mikey: 7200!!! you mst be joking... after spending a grand on a laptop I can't aford a super duper HD like that Saddly mine is only 4600
Your machine as a 'dedicated music workstation' is confusing me greatly. Computers used for audio work nowadays typically have very fast CPUs and high-performance disks. Then you say it's a laptop and it's using a disk speed typical of the average laptop? It must have cost a mint to get a retail P4 3GHz grafted into it, then you can't afford a decent disk for it?
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mikeymike wrote:
Mikey: 7200!!! you mst be joking... after spending a grand on a laptop I can't aford a super duper HD like that Saddly mine is only 4600
Your machine as a 'dedicated music workstation' is confusing me greatly. Computers used for audio work nowadays typically have very fast CPUs and high-performance disks. Then you say it's a laptop and it's using a disk speed typical of the average laptop? It must have cost a mint to get a retail P4 3GHz grafted into it, then you can't afford a decent disk for it?
Well, it's For live work. Where a Desktop machine would be impossible to use.
It runs great, but this random problem is very frustrating.
And the problem is very random, all evening it's been behaving itself, not a stutter. then about 15min ago it did one again! :-x
My synth work doesn't require much disk access so I didn't think a slow drive would be any problem. And Logics Disk monitor shows very little Disk activity.
I tried puttting the Drive into PIO mode, but that was terible!
Next thing to try is Safe Mode, and then Linux.
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I tried puttting the Drive into PIO mode, but that was terible!
Of course it would be :-)
Next thing to try is Safe Mode, and then Linux.
I would do a clean install of 2k/XP first, see if that makes any difference. I assume updating all drivers made no difference?
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mikeymike wrote:
I tried puttting the Drive into PIO mode, but that was terible!
Of course it would be :-)
Next thing to try is Safe Mode, and then Linux.
I would do a clean install of 2k/XP first, see if that makes any difference. I assume updating all drivers made no difference?
Yup latest drivers installed did not help. Anyway, I disabled the swapfile and the problem seems to have been reduced a great deal. I'm fairly confident to say you are right about my crappy hard drive :-( I guess I'll have to start saving up for a new one.
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Yes, I think your hd is just too slow for your overall system. That would explain the lockups on hd access and so on. I think I've even read something over at M$'s site about using old hd's with modern processors. Admit! Your system is not 'off the shelf'. Suit yourself;) kidding. Good luck:)
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A lot of the early P4 notebooks used retail P4 CPU's, but I am yet to come across a P4 3.06 notebook, it would have to have some form of speedstep, otherwise, under load, you would have a mini Chernobyl on your desk. The theory of the HDD not being able to cope with requests from the system is another good theory.
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an IDE disk running properly in DMA or better combined with the right IDE drivers will not cause the problems bloodline is experiencing.
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mikeymike wrote:
an IDE disk running properly in DMA or better combined with the right IDE drivers will not cause the problems bloodline is experiencing.
It seems to be a common problem with WinXP, from what I see on the internet.
anyway, I found this site: Tweeking XP (http://www.absdigital.co.uk/dloads/XPdawTweaks.htm)
It seems to give good advice for getting XP to work better for Audio work.
It sugest to turn off write caching for better performance, I find this counter intuitive. Why?
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anyway, I found this site: Tweeking XP
The install guide has a number of serious inaccuracies, such as the part about enabling UDMA66 on Intel chipsets (that is a pre Win2k SP2 issue, and the key is no longer read with more recent service packs). That key is also only read when Win2k's standard IDE drivers for Intel chipsets is being used, and is ignored if you have third-party drivers installed, such as Intel's.
NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation set value to 1
This is a horrendously bad idea. There is no performance advantage, and it breaks quite a few app installers.
I strongly advise against using this install guide!
Infact, it's got me thinking about writing a "Windows myths explained" article on the tech reference part of my site :-)
It sugest to turn off write caching for better performance, I find this counter intuitive. Why?
It's just plain dumb. There are two reasons why one might want to switch off write caching: To ensure an even higher level of data integrity*, or because the machine/disk exhibits compatibility issues as a result of the option being enabled.
* - and even then I've never hobbled a system in that way, because if data integrity is so important then A: you should be using decent, stable hardware and B: you should configure the system correctly so it won't crash and lose critical data! Any system where I might possibly consider such a tweak is also usually one where performance is needed as well, so it throws that option out the window.
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I though some of that info sounded dodgy.
BTW Having watched Channel4 last night I have reason to believe that your avitar might not be a picture of you :-D
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BTW Having watched Channel4 last night I have reason to believe that your avitar might not be a picture of you
Honestly, I look just like Johnny Depp. I took his place in a few of the films where he's credited, I got mistaken once by a director, so Mr Depp and I came to a deal. It's a nice holiday for the both of us from time to time. I get to be an actor for a while with women all over me, and he gets to be a Windows sysadmin with no women in sight. He keeps saying he's got the better side of the deal, but I don't think so.
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Ok everyone, remember I was having random freezing problems... where the machine would just sort of freez for about a second and then carry on...
Problem solved... I typed in the Laptop chasis number into google and went through every result it returned (something like 900 results :-() And found a CD ISO image of a BIOS update... I burned it to CD, and boot the machine with it. Hey presto... problem solved.
The Moral of the story, it you have any problems... update the BIOS :-D
-Edit- The laptop also runs faster and cooler than ever before... it's actually like owning a brand new machine :-o
-Edit2- If you have a laptop based on the N251S6 then head to http://www.notebookservice.dk/indhold/n251s6.html and download the ISO image of the latest BIOS at the bottom of the page (version 1.13).
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Hum,
i made a collection of tweaks that i used on my machine (some i found don`t do anything at all. ;)
But there are a few gems (http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/blobrana/database/xptips.htm)...
(BTW, page still in construction)