Windows Vista Computer "Stutters" when opening programs or watching videos

Hello anyone willing to help me, I've been having this "stuttering" problem for a while now and I have no idea what the problem could be. I though I might be my RAM failing on me but I ran into another thread in here that said the power supply might be to blame, this was for an older version of Windows so I am not sure if this might apply to me as I am using Windows Vista. I've been searching around and some people blame the registry for being to bloated or fragmented. I do uninstall and move around a lot of files so that might be it. Another thing I should mention is about an hour ago the surge protector my computer is hocked up to failed on me causing my whole system and the monitor and gateway hooked up to it all shut down. After changing the thing I powered my system on and the problem seems to of gotten a bit worse. If anyone at all can help me I would be really, really happy.

By the way my system specs are the following:

Motherboard: EVGA 750i FTW
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q9550 clocked at 2.83 GH (Stock clocking)
GPU: EVGA GTX 280 (nVidia card)
PSU: Corsair TX750W-750 watt power supply
HardDrive:Western Digital 400GB 7200RPM
OS: Windows Vista

 

I'm waaay ahead of you. I've done those things as other people have suggested to those who have had the same problem I do, sadly it doesn't work

 

That is something I have not. Ill try that right now although I am not sure if I should uninstall them with the Add/Remove Windows has or use something more advanced like Revo Uninstaller to get rid of all traces of the driver and then reinstall the new one. Or if I should just install it over the one that is already there.

 

In my experience, I have not not seen "stuttering" opening a program. Stuttering I relate to where say, you are running a video disk and it stops to "catch up" and then shows the next scenes.

Your problem could be insufficient RAM. If you don't have enough RAM for the programs you want to run (above those that are loading at startup), the system will try to start working off the hard disk.

"Stuttering" opening programs, I am not sure what you mean, apart from slow.

Check you have enough RAM for the programs (and background programs) you want to run.

Matt
PS Watch the HDD LED, if there is "exceptional" HDD activity (beyond what you would expect), that could indicate insufficient RAM.

 

I have 2GB of RAM and a RAM monitor that also monitors CPU usage and the weird thing is that they don't spike up to 100%. They RAM stays at 60% usage and the maximum it reaches is to 80% so I don't think its the RAM although I will double check. Also this hasn't happen to me since recently, when I first built my PC it ran perfect. Stuff would open quickly and everything would be smooth. Oh and what I mean by "stuttering" is that the mouse seems to freeze for a bit usually when I watch videos, open programs (like Blender, its a very low resource 3D modeling program), or even when I am surfing the web.

It could be the drivers as Evan suggested, Ill reinstall every video/motherboard driver I have and see if that helps.

Thanks for your help

 

I have not pinned down the memory usage in Vista yet. Yesterday, I was running 1GB of RAM and it ran mostly at 60% (physical) usage, I added 2GB of RAM, but now my physical usage is 1.02GB (33%), not 60% of 1GB (600MB).

In Task Manager (I don't know the program you mention), watch the Page File readout. Check it when you startup to desktop, then again when you have opened most of your "RAM instensive" programs and their files.

I think 80% of physical memory usage might be quite high for Vista and it will quickly try to farm the data to Pagefile to bring it back to 60%.

Watch the Page File data.

Only speculation, but I have virtually nothing running in the background on my system and it wants to use 1.02GB of RAM to run it (that appears to be about 1GB of Vista itself, although it appears to "squeeze" itself into less RAM).

Smoke and mirrors?

Watch that Page File readout.

Matt

 

Alright, so I monitored the Page File data and on start up its at around 981M/4336M but it goes up to around 2113M/4336M when I have all of the things I usually run, Photoshop, Illustrator and a bunch of other things. I also noticed that when I use Photoshop CS4 it lags more often. CS4 uses DX accelerating so it uses the Graphics card as well as multiple cores to make the program run better. I'm starting to think that the GFX card might be to blame for the way my computer is acting up, can it affect a system like this?

And again, thanks for the help!

 

Try looking at the Adobe website for the system requirements for CS4 and the FAQs. CS4 might be set to work on DirectX 9.0c, not version 10. You can install DirectX 9.0c on Vista, it runs if the program requires it and DirectX 10 remains working.

Do you have a good set of graphics drivers? Look for an updated set at the graphics card manufacturer's website. Maybe first though, find an updated set of chipset drivers.

The pagefile has increased over 1.1GB from logon. I think you need to consider getting more RAM. Once you start opening and editing a few files in both Photoshop and Illustrator, you will quickly run out of RAM. Running Vista 32Bit, you could go to 3GB of RAM or 4GB, but you won't be able to utilise more than around 3.4GB, unless you go to Vista 64Bit.

The HDD should not be a main concern, but try running Error Checking (CHKDSK) on it and then doing a defragmentation.

I haven't been to www.pcpitstop.com for a while, but you could see if there are system tests there.

Do things work OK when you are not running Photoshop and/or Illustrator?

Matt

 

They don't actually. It works the same, the only program I always have on is FireFox so Im not sure if that is cause the problem or not but I don't think so. I do have the lastest drivers and I always keep them up to date that also applies to the chipset although I will reinstall them again. I have my HDD defragmented but Ill do it again. Ill keep you posted tomorrow, its 12PM where I live and i need to go to work tomorrow.

 

We had a thread a few months ago (unfortunately I can't find it) with graphics/CS4 problems. People at the Photoshop forum were having problems with it, so maybe you should read there.

 

Alright, Ill check it out. Although I was having this problem waay before I upgraded to CS4. I was using CS3 and it was still doing the same thing from time to time although not as often. I sometimes use Pandora and the music seems to skip/get stuck for a bit just as I experience the problem although it does happen even when Im not listing to music.

At this point Im considering just reinstalling Vista but I don't want to do that if its going to come back again as a hardware problem. Is there any tests I can do to make sure its not any component of mine?

 

I can only respond to what I can "see" regarding your system.

If you run Photoshop and Illustrator at the same time, then you open files to edit them, it will fill up or overload your RAM (you won't see it, Windows will put it into pagefile, by writing it onto the HDD).

Is the CS4 installation a full install itself or an upgrade? You may need to uninstall Photoshop altogether and reinstall version CS4 on it's own. Sorry, I have little experience with Photoshop. Uninstall and reinstall is what I would do.

I have touched on Pandora. Memory...nil.

If you have run out of RAM, the system will run on pagefile from the HDD.

Matt

 

Its a full install, and Ill go buy more RAM this weekend. Hopefully this solves my problem.

What would you recommend? I do game (one of the main reasons I built this system) and 3D model a lot although the program I use is not very resource hungry. The ram was one of the things I didn't really pay much attention to because I don't know much about it and I figured that 2 gigs was ok. Oh one thing I should mention is that I built my friend a system around the same time I made mine and he has almost the same things exept for a Duo 2 Core and GTX 260. He says his system has been running just fine with 2 gigs although he doesn't run as many things as I do.

 

If you have 4 RAM slots, it should be straight forward. You can get another 2 X 1GB matched pair, but in Vista 32Bit only 3.4GB or so will be utilised. I don't think you will save much money by only getting 2 X 512MB to make 3GB. Try to get the same brand as the original modules or check if there are compatibility listings at the motherboard manufacturer's or RAM manufacturer's website.

Read about memory in the motherboard manual.

3D modelling is also RAM intensive, maybe not by the modelling program itself, but as I said, it's once you've opened a few files or a complex file, that fills the RAM and Vista will start putting overflow into pagefile to compensate. If it is busy farming out data to the pagefile on the HDD and you request a program to be started up or use your DVD at the same time, the system won't keep up and start to stutter like you describe.

Matt

 

Alright, sounds good. So if anything is being written to the page file then thats bad right? Or not bad but not good, or something like that. I think. Ill just go get more RAM and see if it helps.

Thanks for all of your help, you guys are great!