Very strange lag spikes.

[Shadow_pig]

I was wondering if anyone can help me. Every so often when i play a game it causes lag for about 1-2 seconds and the FPS drop greatly notciable in any game but noticably more in sof2 as its chugging along at around 100 fps or 80 it just goes straight down to as low as 20-30, this happens at any time and i have no clue what the problem is. Ive read up it was my IBM drive so im now using a seagate problem still there, changed ram.. still there.

im using a 2600+ athlon with 768 ddr 2100 ram and a radeon 9500 128mb video card.

The problem only seems to happen sometimes and can be after a couple of reboots, i read other places it was due to IRQ settings but i am on Winxp and cannot change them.

Any help?? ive had this problem for well around a year and its the most annoying thing ever.

If you're guessing my problem is intermittent, it only happens sometimes or could be every 1-3 days max. Plus the strange thing is if i leave the computer on without rebooting and there is no jerkiness in games and then leave it for a while ( few hours or less ) and try playing a game again it would jerk maybe every 20-30 seconds and last for 1-2 seconds.

Before you start answering or trying i'd just like to say i've tried reinstalling the drivers, changing hardware acceleration.. possibly just about anything i can think of right now.

I'm beginning to think that there is a problem with my video card, im not really sure if it is but ive only seemed to be getting this since ive had my radeon 9500 and if this is my problem im very dissapointed and is strange to see how this can happen. i do have a geforce 2 64MB i could try for a few days to see if the video card is the problem.. but ill wait for you guys opinions first

i need a real expert ( if we have any ) to help here. Thanks..


I am Desperate for ANY help so please dont hesitate to reply, as you can imagine this is the most annoying thing in pc history.

[Restek]

Have you tried running msconfig & preventing ANY apps from loading? What do you have running in the background (eg do have an automatic defragger or anything)?

Does the hard disk go crazy during these lags?

[Un4g1v3n]

In all my lag times, the problem was running msn messenger and kaZaA at the same time. Those 2 programs are the biggest lag deals in the world. So, if you have msn or KaZaA, close them before playing sof2 (one of my favourite games) and maybe that will help.


NOTE: This is only if you have msn and kazaa!

[Shadow_pig]

I have tried clean formats and i still can get the lag with just SOF2 running. I do have kazaa and windows messenger, but when i do play sof2 i hardly ever leave kazaa running, there is no defragger running i know what runs on here. Though ill try MSconfig and stop msn and anything else starting, though i really doubt MSN running in the background can cause this huge performance drop in games every so often. since it may take a few days to notice if the problem has gone i wont be able to let you know until then but cheers for the replies.

i would like to note that even 2d games are quite jerky on this also, they were never like it before in the geforce 2 days.

Anyway i will find out soon enough.

EDIT : The disk does not go crazy, this hard disk is fine.

[Gecko]

[Shadow_pig]

[Restek]

[Shadow_pig]

Ive bought alot of things, i have a water cooler which isnt even being used and right about now im getting fed up with all this trouble.

Okay.. it seems the 9500 wasnt the problem as the geforce also caused the same problem.. running out of ideas i only thought of 1 more thing, in fact there was only 1 thing i hadnt replaced in my pc and that is the actual RAM. I took out the stick of 512mb ( with ramsink and fan attached because i overclocked it at one time ) my mate lend me a 256 DDR stick of 2100 today and i plugged it in, only about an hour or so back now and ive had no trouble yet with it or fps they stay at 115 on sof2 and not lag down to 50 randomly or any lower, but im yet to verify if this is the problem as i will have to give it some time ( couple of days? ) to see if anything comes up. I'll let you guys know.

I guess overclocking my ram must have fried it, this perhaps explains why the rpoblem only occured sometimes and not constantly.. unless it was already fried anyway, but i had a stick of 512mb just march not so long back.. i also had a ram cooler so i dont understand how this could have happend since it wasnt hardly overclocked, just 144mhz instead of default of 133mhz, but then again the NS was dropped by 1 on each part or CAS or whatever you call it.

Getting weird but at least i may be getting somewhere yet, if this is the problem looks like i'll be shelling out for more ram more money down the drain once again . I think ive wasted my time overclocking if this is actually the trouble with it, also wasted money with the water cooler etc.. i think it just damages your pc if this is the case

Back soon..

[Shadow_pig]

Right i totally give up now, my games started lagging again last night even with my friends ram stick slotted in.

I cant believe this problem can happen especially when it happens on 2 motherboards and when ive now replaced absolutely everything inside. So its not the ram, motherboard, video card,hard drive, cpu ( tried 1500+ and 1800+ ) and to my luck the same problem. I'm using a 21" monitor my dad got from work.. though this maybe stupid i dont think it could be that. I'ts definatly a problem i never see this happen on my dads or friends machine, but how?? the other tower unit with my epox board did the same thing and that even had a different PSU even though its not working atm when it did though.


I dont know if anyone else has ever had this but ehh.. its not me. To show you guys i'll upload a 4mb video i took with my camera in a few hours or more and post the link here for you to see as im not joking, it will be a bit fuzzy since the quality will be downgraded but you'll see it plainly.


I've altered just about everything in the bios and it makes no difference, tried each individual ram stick in the board, all plugged in together too.. Nothing.. Someone help.

[Shadow_pig]

Please excuse me for double posting, i have noticed that when you said about an optical mouse could cause the problem.. well i have a Cordless keyboard with a hub at the desk and there are batteries in the keyboard, ive had it quite a while and i havent tried a normal keyboard since. Would this cause the problem? i will plug in a corded one after

No luck with the keyboard..

So i finally replaced the power supply just now it was a 145W max and it was used on my old pentium celeron 366mhz, i put in a 250W one and am now going to test. Back again later.

[Shadow_pig]

[Restek]

[Shadow_pig]

I found a system process running called CMESys.exe i havent a clue what it is for but i disabled it. no trouble so far.

Though i wouldnt put my finger on it just yet.

EDIT : ive also found another 2 suspicious looking files, one being smss.exe and the other csrss.exe i cannot seem to end the process to them though for some strange reason, i get a message saying "This is a critical system process. Task manager cannot end this process."

Strange how i havent noticed these before.. im not sure if their causing problems or conflicts though and i fail to see where they could have come from, they may be just normal windows files... but i suspect CMESys.exe to be a culprit somewhere

[brad]

You're right. CMESys.exe is "adware". Csrss.exe and smss.exe are system files that are often targeted by trojans.
Try downloadind and running both: (They are both free)


Remember to update them both.
Also, have you updated and ran your AV lately?
One other thing. Visit the . It's one of the finest sites for info and advise on all those "Processes" running on Winxp. I, personally, run one of his "Tweaks" to cut down on unnecessary processes.
brad

[Shadow_pig]

Spybot worked great and found a few things around 4-6 and i deleted them, swat it seems slow and wants to scan alot of the computer so ill leave it on before i go to bed. Still no problems..
i dont understand how the virus scanner or ad ware remover didnt detect that file running.
I've still yet to have any problems since disabling it from my startup menu though.. How can those spyware thingies cause lag?. Thats a major pain in the ass, must have been eating all my CPU power. well it seems like the problem is solved ( i hope ) now i have to live with a 350W psu that i just ordered for £55 oh well ill find some use for it i suppose.

A mistake made is a mistake learnt eh? just like when i blew up my comp last year by switching the voltage on the psu heh