x1000 sound cutting out

[cd1111]

Hi guys, first of all thanks for putting this forum up.  I was a regular at the old forums  back when everyone ordered their x1000's.

My problem is that when I'm playing mp3's, or video, I'm getting audio chunk when I do even anything in XP, sometimes when I'm not doing anything at all.

I've got a 1.4M, 512mb, running XP home SP2 with the latest SoundMAX drivers.

In fact, I just installed these drivers and it's gotten worse.  There was absolutely no problem with the sound until a couple months ago, so not exactly sure what the deal is.  Run everything I can think of, defrag/antivir/adaware and it still chunks.  

Taking a look at the Performance grid in Administrative Tools, I'm getting really bad spikes in all three measured lines (CPU/Memory/Pages per sec) when the sound does cut out.  

This should not be happening with this machine and short of a clean install anyone have any suggestions as to what the problem is?  I don't remember when I installed SP2 but it may be around the same time the problems started.  

Thanks in advance for any help.

[kf_man]

My big question is, when was that last time that you reinstalled your system from scratch?  I would highly recommend it given your problem.  I know you said that you would like to avoid it, but there are so many things it could be and if you haven't done it in six months or more, you will notice a huge increase in performance.

If you do decide to do a clean install, leave it unplugged from the network as long as you can, especially if you don't  have a router.  I usually try to install all of the drivers from Windows Update (and the updates too) first, then upgrade the drivers as necessary.  Then I install tons of security stuff.

Security Apps:

Anti-Virus (McAfee Enterprise 8.0i)
Microsoft Antispyware Beta
SpyBot Search & Destroy
Lavasoft Adaware[/list:u]
I recommend using all of them at once and having only McAfee and Microsoft do realtime scanning (the others don't in their free versions anyway).  Then you can start installing software one piece at a time as necessary.

I know it seems like a daunting task, but after you have done it a few times, you will be very comfortable and able to do it quickly and easily.  This laptop is especially good since most drivers are on Windows Update or preinstalled in the system.  I have another post on the forum with the list of drivers that I use for more information.

Once again, I know you didn't really want to hear this, but this is my whole-hearted recommendation.  Computers running Windows just aren't designed to run forever.  I think you will notice a huge difference when you are done reformatting the computer.

[cd1111]

Thanks for the reply.  I'm no stranger to OS installs but your tips are helpful since it's been awhile since I did a clean install of XP.  You're probably right, I don't think I've had a fresh install in almost a year and a half.  After this week, since I have a to take a huge test on it (bar exam), I'll probably clean it out.  Maybe I'll get around to the hard drive upgrade while I'm at it.  

Keep these forums up, people will come!

[kf_man]

I'm glad I could help, I have been contemplating doing that for some time too.  Having delt with Windows 9x for so many years, you learn that some problems would just be easier to fix with a reinstall.  This is especially true since you already tried some very valid ways to fix it.  I'm hoping to do mine sometime this week, but at least before school starts again.