back2thefutura

Does anyone know of a good website that can help diagnose problems with my PC? Currently whenever I connect to the Internet, use MS Word or Outlook Express the sounds crackles out, everything goes quiet and freezes up for a second and then goes back to normal, and its starting to get a little annoying.

Anyone got any ideas of how I can fix it, or where I can look for some help? The place we bought it from isnt being very helpful and I wouldnt trust them anyway.

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rod

greetings all
give

www.pcpitstop.com

a try that should help you

regards
rod

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Ambrose_1

I'm member of a msn group called computing cafe, which i normally go to but i dont know many others so the above could be better

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The Kiwi's That Don't Support Greg Murphy

pauljh74

I get something similar - what happens with me is you get little "hiccups" where the sound gets interrupted or crackles a moment and then goes back to normal. It is only for a fraction of a second and becomes more frequent when CPU load increases. I have heard the slightly older VIA chipsets suffer from this. I have an Abit KT7A-RAID m/b with a 1.33GHz Athlon - the chipset is a VIA KT133A /VIA 686B and I think this is one of the affected ones.
Just watching Winamp's CPU usage, most of the time it will sit at a few percent, then spike up to 20 occasionally.

Apparently the via 4 in 1 service pack is meant to help - it is a set of updated drivers for VIA chipsets - if this is the board you have

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back2thefutura

yeah that sounds exactly like what i get. where's the service pack available from? windowsupdate.com?

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Cat_Weazle

When I have problems I try this site
http://www.annoyances.org/
click on the xp forum and do a search for an answer or try
http://www.spywareinfo.com/
for info on trojens and spyware

jonk

This is what I ended up doing after I got strange problems like yours.

I ONLY ever use the Opera browser v7.3j, and never IE6 and I use 98lite as an OS, which gives me basically 4 different OS's in one. 98lite breaks apart many items in 98SE and makes them optional like Active X controls, IE 6, Outlook, media player 9 etc which cause more problems than they are worth.

I never rely on Windows update for patches and since formatting the HD is a common occurence I do often the 98SE registry stays healthy as!

Learn to format your own computer HD and forget about updates of any kind to fix your PC, if the registry is damaged then it's time to reload 'everything'.

By the way 98lite makes the PC so stable that regularly Microsoft targeted trojans and viruses don't inhabit the OS like they use to. Take my word for it, wean yourself off the MS stuff.

Dellboy999

VIRUS - you running the latest virus software and updates, and have you scanned your computer recently for a virus.

run a repair of office as well, always helps alot of problems, aplply the latest windows SP for your version, get windows 2k at least, 95/98 suck badly.

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back2thefutura

sorry should have said i already have XP home, and the latest versions of everything - always keep it updated. I have Norton 2004 Corporate Edition too, so somehow I dont think it'd be a virus.

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xtrail

Sounds to me like a CPU load issue as stated. If you're running XP and still talking about your computer store, it's probably a fairly new PC so this shouldn't happen. Most new PCs will come with onboard sound which is mostly software driven - this means it relies on the CPU and the memory subsystem to chug out sound when needed.

If you're running a VIA board, definitely grab the VIA 4 in 1 patch - you can get it from www.via.com.tw. Or look at your motherboard manual and go to their website. Usually you go to the support section and then software/drivers.

The PC pit stop site mentioned above is a fantastic one. You might have a heap of spyware running in the background chewing up resources. In XP, you can right click on the start bar and go to task manager to see what resources your PC and the programs on it are taking up. If you have virtually no resources, then PC pit stop might help you get rid of some programs that are taking it up...

If it's a hardware problem, I'd be thinking bad RAM - as most 'corner store' computer shops throw in the cheapest components they can find as the retail PC industry is cut throat. In my experience, the fmost dodgy cheap component is RAM (or maybe power supplies - but with more reason). If it remains a problem after patching, I'd recommend getting your computer store to fix it if its under warranty. They don't take much of a financial hit if its faulty hardware, and the local PC stores here in penrith are usually quick to replace faulty items. Take them to the dept. of fair trading if they won't fix it under warranty.

If its not a new PC, then it might be time to upgrade (egad, I hate that word - it always costs me money!). Or perhaps have a look around for a new sound card (a dedicated soundcard won't take up anywhere near as many CPU cycles). Check out http://www.computermarket.com.au for prices.

If you have any questions, PM me - hard to troubleshoot through email, but if I know what hardware you have I can point you in the direction of all the right patches!

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