stuttering

  • Thread starter Thread starter dobro
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dobro

dobro

Well-known member
It's the computer that stutters, not me. The computer's just started stuttering on playback for the first time. It's a fast machine and has loads of RAM. The only change I've made on the sytem recently is to delete loads of email attachments (WTF?). I don't get it. Anybody have any ideas?

I'm running Win 98.
 
When you look at the task manager, what's running?
 
Yeah, that sounds like a sensible approach.

What's task manager, and how do I find it?
 
CTRL - ALT - DELETE

Will show you (mostly) what's running in the background.
 
It's the only way it works in 98. No 'task manager' per say like xp or 2000 , but a way to see what is running. Not everything, but as good as it gets in 98.

msconfig is a good tool as well Dobro, start>run

msconfig <enter>

This will show you what is loading at OS startup. Disable what *you* think isn't important :)
 
Hey, Emeric, thanks - I tried the CRTL ALT DELETE thing, and it works. The problem is that I recognize only some of the items listed (all of which are necessary), so I don't know if it's safe to delete any of the ones I *don't* recognize LOL.

Before I do anything else, I'm gonna try Messhuggah's suggestion to defrag. I haven't defragged for a while, ever since I read a thread in which a number of people with informed opinions said that defragging did little or nothing for computer performance.

I'll report back.
 
Use the System Information component in Accessories and check out what is running at Startup. You can selectively disable various toys that want to start when the system loads.

More than likely, you have picked up one of the advertising spy bots that is always trying to contact the mother ship with all your machine information. These operate in the background, but suck computing cycles and slow you down.

Any title you don't understand can be searched at the Microsoft tech-net site. If you don't find an entry, it is probably a spy bot. I use Spy Bot Search & Destroy, which is a freebie you can get from the Internet.

Like all of these tools, I suggest making a backup (preferably a GHOST image) of your system before attempting any removals. This also applies to routine de-installation of software packages. Very few packages seem to remove themselves entirely, and correctly.

Invest in a copy of Norton Systemworks 2003, and install only the Norton Utilities portion. WinDoctor is the component you want, as it will find all sorts of crap left in your registry. NSW2003 is sold virtually without cost at Fry's, etc, after you mail in for the rebates. DiskDoctor, WinDoctor, SpeedDisk are the only components I install. Ditch the rest... buggy and too much other crap in your system.
 
Okay, three parts to this post.

First, I defragged audio drive - took 9 hours. Cool Edit now loads files faster, but still stutters.

Second, I'm now starting to get an error message I've never gotten before fairly frequently: "MmTask. An error has occurred in your program etc... CLOSE or IGNORE" So, this is getting weirder and weirder and I'm thinking maybe a Win 98 reinstall is in order.

Finally, all that stuff you mention, bgavin - it sounds useful, thanks. I'll start with the spybot killer, and then move on to the microsoft site information. I don't know how to do that ghost backup thing, though. Rocket science.
 
It could be that you're just the victim of the wonderful Microsoft Entropy Effect.

Gradually over time their OS's get slower and more unreliable as more and more stuff gets added to the system as you use it.

95/98/ME and NT are particularly prone to this, Win2k and XP seem a little better.

If you can't find what's slowing the machine down, defragging hasn't worked, you don't know what programs you can disable safely and weird errors start happening... It's time to wipe the machine and reinstall from scratch (inlcuding a full format of the hard disc during the install).

I generally find I need to do this at least once a year ,sometimes more. But that's normally down to me breaking things on purpose as I play with stuff, hey I'm a techie OK. ;)

One thing you might try first is to get a copy of AdAware and running it to clear out any nasty spyware that you may have inadvertently installed on your machine (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/)

DON'T FORGET! BACKUP YOUR DATA BEFORE DOING A REINSTALL! ;)

HTH

Muttley
 
make sure your not running a bunch of crap in the background, ahem, AOL, anti virus, etc etc and ETC* and haveing 256/512mb of memory helps quite a bit....

just a thought...
 
Run msconfig and take a look at what's starting on bootup. (Start->Run - enter "msconfig" ). Uncheck everything that's not supposed to be there (hint, if you can't tell what a program is from its executable name, try searching for the executable name on google. 99.99% of the time you can figure it out)

Then since you are running Windows 98, and it did take 9 hours to defrag, you might check to make sure that DMA is enabled for the drive. I don't know how it would "disable" itself, but it's worth a look. I haven't seen 98 in so long that I can't exactly tell you where to look for that.

Before any of this, however, make sure that your buffer settings are right in your software and/or hardware control panel. One of the most common causes of stuttering is simply people setting their buffers up way too small when it's unnecessary.

Finally, as people have mentioned, Win9x did have a tendancy to destroy itself after a while. Sometimes it's fixable, other times it'll just drive you nuts till you reinstall.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Okay, I followed your instructions, Slack. I found this page useful for deciding what to keep and what to dump:

http://teddy.fcc.ro/tips/MSConfigItems.html

Anyway, here's the result:

1 The stuttering continues, but not as bad. (It isn't buffer settings - I haven't touched those in years.)

2 No matter how many times I deselected Paltalk, it kept reappearing in the systray. So I uninstalled it. It still reappears as selected in the systray startup menu. Perhaps Paltalk is right up with Real Player as the work of the devil?

Possibly time for a reinstall of Win98 then.

Questions: what's Winkvs? It's in my startup as well - it's a windows systems file, but why in startup?

Also: the reason I asked in another thread here about email attachment deletion is that I thought maybe I'd inadvertently virussed myself the other day by going through my email attachment folder and deleting stuff I didn't want. A lot of what's happening suddenly reminds me a bit of times the computer's got virussed.
 
Have you started using any new plug-ins lately? I had no problems recording lots of tracks (24 bit / 44.1) with Cakewalk on a P3 / 533 setup. But adding a few plugins caused stuttering on playback just like you described. Doing a motherboard/cpu upgrade eliminated about 95% of my stuttering with plug-ins, but not all of it.
 
No, no new plugins, but thanks for the idea.

I took Mu77ley's advice about using Adaware to spot and dump sneaky applications in the background - it's a nice application (thanks for the tip, Mu) but it only came up with a couple of small things - skeech.com crap.

I've disabled a few items from the systray as well, but that doesn't work. Cool Edit's still stuttering.

I suppose it's possible that the system got virussed - I don't use anti-virus software - but it seems to me that the chances of that are really low. It looks like it's time for a dreaded Win98 reinstall. I did one once. I hate it.
 
dobro said:
I took Mu77ley's advice about using Adaware to spot and dump sneaky applications in the background - it's a nice application (thanks for the tip, Mu)
Click to expand...

NP mate, glad to be of service! ;)

Muttley
 
Try a virus scan...Trend has an online virus scanner at:

http://www.anti-virus.com

I'd hate to see you reinstall at this point...it should be a last resort.

You might try updating all of your drivers. Reinstall your soundcard drivers. Sometimes updating and reinstalling drivers can shake a problem loose (ah, the magic of windows).

If you do feel like you're at the point of wanting to reinstall, I would first suggest updating windows via windows update...and do em all. Sometimes an update can be just as effective in straightening out dll nightmares as a reinstall.

Finally, what's changed? I'm willing to bet that SOMETHING has changed...maybe something that you think has nothing to do with this?

Slackmaster 2000
 
A couple of things -

First, here is another good idea for a free virus scanner. It's called F-Prot, and there are regular updates for it. It's a real-mode (DOS) program, so it can be run either from within Win 98, or after booting from a floppy (the best way to insure no viruses have already been loaded). It's legitimate shareware (free). You can down load it, and its updates, from here:

http://www.f-prot.com/products/home_use/dos/

http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/53465.html

http://www.simtel.net/pub/pd/52806.html

Second, I know nothing about Cool Edit, but if it's like Cakewalk there should be someplace you can adjust the latency settings on your sound card. Sometimes a minor adjustment there can cure stutttering (or so I've been told on a certain bulitin board I frequent :) )

Third, if you do decide to bite the big one and re-install, I STRONGLY suggest that you get your system set up perfectly and then BACK IT UP using an imaging program like Symantec Ghost or Powerquest Drive Image. Then copy your backup image to CDRs. If this situation happens again in the future, just pop in the CDs and in a few minutes you are back to a clean restored system. You may also want to upgrade to XP sometime soon, and if so you will want to have a backup of your working Win98 system (just in case). So its a good idea regardless.
 
Mu77ley said:
It could be that you're just the victim of the wonderful Microsoft Entropy Effect.

Gradually over time their OS's get slower and more unreliable as more and more stuff gets added to the system as you use it.

95/98/ME and NT are particularly prone to this, Win2k and XP seem a little better.

If you can't find what's slowing the machine down, defragging hasn't worked, you don't know what programs you can disable safely and weird errors start happening... It's time to wipe the machine and reinstall from scratch (inlcuding a full format of the hard disc during the install).

I generally find I need to do this at least once a year ,sometimes more. But that's normally down to me breaking things on purpose as I play with stuff, hey I'm a techie OK. ;)


Muttley
Click to expand...

Same here, although it can take me weeks to tweak everything back to the way it was. There's nothing like a brand new install though to get rid of all the garbage.
 
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